LIBRARY UNIVERSITY Of CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO J OU^, £ . (flJc'MjLA. -\ UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGp 3 1822 02479 2228 Digitized by tine Internet Arcliive in 2007 witli funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.arcliive.org/details/awakeningofjapanOOokakiala THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN BY OKAKURA-KAKUZO AUTHOR OF " THE IDEAIS OF THE EAST " NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1905 Copyright, 1904, by The Century Co. Published November, 190U THE OEVINNE PRESS CONTENTS PAGE Publishers' Preface ix Chapter I. The Night of Asia The sudden development of Japan an enigma to foreign observers — Asia the true source of Japan's inspiration — While Christendom struggled with medievalism the Buddhaland was a garden of culture — Effect of Islam upon Asia — The Mongol outburst destroyed Asia's unity — The condition of China and India — Japan never con- qaered, but buried alive for nearly 270 years 8 Chapter II. The Chrysalis Japan under the Tokugawa shogunate — lyeyasu's influ- ence— The Mikado's palace the "Forbidden Interior" — The kuges, or court aristocracy — The daimios — The samurai, or sworded gentry — The commoners: farmers, artisans, and traders — The outcasts — The nation in a pleasant slumber 22 Chapter III. Buddhism and Confucianism Buddhism and Confucianism never interfered in matters of state — Despite its temples and monasteries, Japan has no church — Neo-Confucianism 53 Chapter IV. The Voice from Within Three schools of thought united in causing the regener- ation of Japan — First, the Kogaku, or School of Classical Learning — Second, the School of Oyomei — Third, the Historical School 70 CONTENTS Chapter V. The White Disaster The advent of the West not an unmixed blessing— But the Japanese eagerly identify themselves veith Western civilization — And are regarded as renegades by their neighbors — Russia the first European nation to threaten Japan, at the end of the eighteenth century — The advent of American war-vessels a mighty shock 95 Chapter VI. The Cabinet and the Boudoir The coming of Commodore Perry unites the nation — The ladies of Yedo Castle and the shogunate — The shogun of Commodore Perry's time — The conflict on the succes- sion to the shogunate — Execution of agitators — Assassi- nation of the Premier Hikone 113 Chapter VII. The Transition Eight years of rapid changes — The Federalists — The Imperialists — The Unionists — The last of the shoguns. . 141 Chapter VIII. Restoration and Refor- mation The Restoration essentially a return — Past conditions revived, with the new spirit of freedom and equality' — Constitutional government a success in Japan — Edu- cation— The commoner transformed into a samurai by the system of military service — The Japanese soldier's contempt of death not founded on hope of future reward — The exaltation of womanhood — The question of treaty revision — The helm in strong hands 162 Chapter IX. The Reincarnation Japan accepts the new without sacrificing the old — The heart of Old Japan still beats strongly — In art Japan stands alone against all the world 184 vi CONTENTS Chapter X. Japan and Peace The very nature of Japanese civilization prohibits aggres- sion— Relations with China and Korea — The war with China in 1894-5 — The Yellow Peril — The night of the Orient has been lifted, but the worid still in the dusk of humanity 201 Chronology 224 vii PUBLISHERS' PREFACE Okakuea-Kakuzo, the author of this work and of " The Ideals of the East," was born in the year 1863. Having been, as he has said, " from early youth fond of old things," after leaving col- lege in 1880 he interested himself in the formation of clubs and societies for ar- chaeological research. The Japanese Renaissance, begun at the end of the eighteenth century, suffered a brief check during the civil commotion fol- lowing the opening of the country after the arrival of the American Commodore Perry. The work of Okakura was a resumption of that begun by the earher scholars. In 1886 this scholarly young enthu- siast was sent to America and Europe as a commissioner to report on Western art education. On returning, he organ- ix ized the Imperial Art School of Tokio, of which he was made director. He was also one of the chief organizers, and is still a member, of the Imperial Archseo- logical Commission, whose duty it is to study, classify, and preserve the ancient architecture, the archives of the monas- teries, and all specimens of ancient art. Okakura was, naturally, one of the promoters of the reactionary movement against the wholesale introduction of Western art and manners. This move- ment was carried on by the starting of periodicals and clubs devoted to the preservation of the old life of Japan, — the work being carried on, also, in the field of literature and the drama. In 1898 he resigned the directorship of the Imperial Art School at Tokio, having had some difference with the educational authorities in the matter of the course of instruction to be pursued therein. Nearly one half of the faculty resigned at the same time, and started, in a suburb of Tokio, a private acad- emy called Nippon Bijitsuin. Here are kept up the ancient traditions of na- tive art. Simultaneously with the foundation of this school of instruction, a number of prominent painters of the national school of art in various parts of the country organized the Society of Japa- nese Painters, of which the president is Prince Nijo, — the head of the Fujiwara family and uncle of the crown prin- cess,— Okakura being elected vice-presi- dent. It is proper to state that the present work, like " The Ideals of the East," is not a translation, but is written by its Japanese author originally in English. This work is based not merely upon printed material and common hearsay, but upon information derived through the author's special acquaintance with surviving actors in the Restoration. In " The Awakening of Japan " the author answers with profound know- ledge, great vividness of expression, and xi intense patriotism the question now up- permost in the minds of Western ob- servers : From what sources are drawn the intellectual and moral qualities which have enabled the present genera- tion of statesmen, citizens, soldiers, and sailors, under an able emperor, to enter suddenly, as a first-class liberal power, into the company of nations? The author shows clearly and pictur- esquely that the accomplishments of the New Japan are the natural outcome of her history, — her religion, her art, her tradition. He declares that there is no "Yellow Peril"; that the empire, though warlike, stands not for aggres- sion but for peace I He sketches the en- tire history of the country, but dwells particularly upon modern events and developments, — the opening of the long- closed door of the imprisoned nation by Commodore Perry, the restoration of the Mikado to power, the new regime, the occasion of the war of 1904. He essays an answer to the anxious query xii of the admirers of the art of Japan: Will Japan's modern successes lead to the loss of its ancient and distinctive art? He indicates some of the tendencies which may affect the future of the Orient; and he speaks especially of the Christian attitude toward woman as an influence upon the society and civili- zation of Japan. xiu THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN THE NIGHT OF ASIA THE sudden development of Japan has been more or less of an enigma to foreign observers. She is the coun- try of flowers and ironclads, of dash- ing heroism and delicate tea-cups, — the strange borderland where quaint shad'^ ows cross each other in the twilight of the New and the Old World. Un- til recently the West has never taken Japan seriously. It is amusing to find nowadays that such success as we have achieved in our efforts to take a place 8 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN among the family of nations appears in the eyes of many as a menace to Christendom. In the mysterious no- thing is improbable. Exaggeration is the courtesy which fancy pays to the unknown. What sweeping condem- nation, what absurd praise has not the world lavished on New Japan? We are both the cherished child of modern progress and a dread resurrection of heathendom— the Yellow Peril itself 1 Has not the West as much to un- learn about the East as the East has to learn about the West? In spite of the vast sources of information at the command of the West, it is sad to realize to-day how many misconcep- tions are still entertained concerning us. We do not mean to allude to the unthinking masses who are still domi- nated by race prejudice and that vague THE NIGHT OF ASIA hatred of the Oriental which is a relic from the days of the crusades. But even the comparatively well-informed fail to recognize the inner significance of our revival and the real goal of our aspirations. It may he that, as our problems have been none of the sim- plest, our attitude has been often para- doxical. Perhaps the fact that the his- tory of East Asiatic civilization is still a sealed book to the Western public may account for the great variety of opinions held by the outside world con- cerning our present conditions and fu- ture possibilities. Our sympathizers have been pleased to marvel at the facility with which we have introduced Western science and industries, constitutional government, and the organization necessary for car- rying on a gigantic war. They forget 5 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN that the strength of the movement which brought Japan to her present position is due not less to the innate viriHty which has enabled her to as- similate the teachings of a foreign civ- ilization than to her capability of adopting its methods. With a race, as with the individual, it is not the ac- cumulation of extraneous knowledge, but the realization of the self within, that constitutes true progress. With immense gratitude to the West for what she has taught us, we must still regard Asia as the true source of our inspirations. She it was who trans- mitted to us her ancient culture, and planted the seed of our regeneration. Our joy must be in the fact that, of all her children, we have been permitted to prove ourselves worthy of the in- heritance. Great as was the difficulty 6 THE NIGHT OF ASIA involved in the struggle for a national reawakening, a still harder task con- fronted Japan in her effort to bring an Oriental nation to face the terrible ex- igencies, of modern existence. Until the moment when we shook it off, the same lethargy lay upon us which now lies on China and India. Over our country brooded the Night of Asia, en- veloping all spontaneity within its mys- terious folds. Intellectual activity and social progress became stifled in the at- mosphere of apathy. Religion could but soothe, not cure, the suffering of the wounded soul. The weight of our burden can never be understood with- out a knowledge of the dark back- ground from which we emerged to the light. The decadence of Asia began long ago with the Mongol conquest in the 7 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN thirteenth century. The classic civil- izations of China and India shine the brighter by contrast with the night that has overtaken them since that disas- trous irruption. The children of the Hwang-ho and the Ganges had from early days evolved a culture compara- ble with that of the era of highest en- lightenment in Greece and Rome, one which even foreshadowed the trend of advanced thought in modern Europe. Buddhism, introduced into China and the farther East during the early cen- turies of the Christian era, bound to- gether the Vedic and Confucian ideals in a single web, and brought about the unification of Asia. A vast stream of intercourse flowed throughout the ex- tent of the whole Buddhaland. Tidings of any fresh philosophical achievement in the University of Nalanda,^ or in ^ The center of Buddhist learning in Behar. 8 THE NIGHT OF ASIA the monasteries of Kashmir, were brought by pilgrims and wandering monks to the thought-centers of Chinaj, Korea, and Japan. Kingdoms often ex- changed courtesies, while peace mar- ried art to art. From this synthesis of the whole Asiatic life a fresh impetus was given to each nation. It is curious to note that each effort in one nation to attain a higher expression of hu- manity is marked by a simultaneous and parallel movement in the other. That liberalism and magnificence, re- sulting in the worship of poetry and harmony, which, in the sixth century, so characterized the reign of Vikra- maditya in India, appear equally in the glorious age of the Tang emperors of China (618-907), and at the coiu-t of our contemporary mikados at Nara. Again the movement toward individual- ism and renationalization which, in the 9 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN eighth century, is marked in India by the advent of Sankaracharya, the apostle of Hinduism, is followed, dur- ing the Sung dynasty (960-1260), by a similar activity in China, culminating in Neo-Confucianism and the recasting of the Zen school^ of Buddhism, a phase echoed both in Japan and Korea. Thus, while Christendom was strug- gling with medievalism, the Buddha- land was a great garden of culture, where each flower of thought bloomed in individual beauty. But, alas! the Mongol horsemen un- der Jenghiz Khan were to lay waste these areas of civilization, and make of them a desert like that out of which they themselves came. It was not the first time that the warriors of the steppes ^ Zen is the sect of Buddhism which seeks illumination through self-concentration. It corresponds to the Indian Gnan. 10 THE NIGHT OF ASIA had appeared in the rich valleys of China and India. The Huns and the Scythians had often succeeded in tem- porarily inflicting their rule on the horders of these countries. After a time, however, they were either driven out, or else tamed and finally absorbed in the peaceful life of the plain. But this last Mongol outburst was of a magnitude unequaled in the past. It was destined not only to reach the Pa- cific and the Indian Ocean, but to cross the Ural and overflow Moscow. The descendants of Jenghiz Khan in China established the Yuen dynasty and reigned at Peking from 1280 to 1368, while their cousins began a series of attacks on India which ended in the empire of the Grand Moguls. The Yuens still adhered to Buddhism, though in the degenerate form known 11 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN as Lamaism; but the Mogul emper- ors of Delhi, who came in the foot- steps of Mahmud of Ghazni, had em- braced the Arabian faith as they sped on their path of conquest through southern Asia. The Moguls not only exterminated Buddhism, but also per- secuted Hinduism. It was a terrible blow to Buddhaland when Islam inter- posed a barrier between China and India greater than the Himalayas themselves. The flow of intercourse, so essential to human progress, was suddenly stopped. Our own time- honored relations with our continental neighbors even began to wane after the Mongol conquerors of China at- tempted to invade Japan in the latter part of the thirteenth century, forcing Korea to act as their ally. Their bel- ligerent attitude continued for nearly 12 THE NIGHT OF ASIA forty years; and though, thanks to our insular position and the prowess of our warriors, we were able successfully to repel their attacks, remembrance of their aggression was not to be effaced, and even led to retaliatory steps on our part. The memory of our ancient friend- ship with the courts of the Tang and Sung dynasties was lost. One of the latent causes of our late war with the Celestial Empire may be found in the mutual suspicion with which the two nations have now regarded each other for many centuries. By the Mongol conquest of Asia, Buddhaland was rent asunder, never again to be reunited. How little do the Asiatic nations now know of each other! They have grown callous to the doom that befalls their neighbors. One cannot but be struck by the con- 13 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN trast between the effect of the Mongol outburst on Buddhaland and on Chris- tendom. The maritime races of the Mediterranean and the Baltic, by their long course of mutual aggression, were well equipped to cope with the terrific onslaught of the nomadic invaders. In spite of temporary reverses, Europe may even be said to have gained some advantage from those struggles which were so disastrous to us of the East. It was then that she first developed that power of combination which makes her so formidable to-day. The Mongol outburst, which displaced the Turkish hordes and resulted in the creation of the Saracenic and Ottoman empires, gave the Frankish nations the oppor- tunity of uniting against a common enemy. Before the walls of Jerusalem and on the banks of the Danube met in 14 THE NIGHT OF ASIA comradeship, once and forever, the flower of Christian chivalry, and there was consolidated a conception of Chris- tendom such as papal Rome could never alone have brought into exis- tence. The fall of Constantinople was in itself one of the chief factors of the Italian Renaissance. The peaceful and self-contained na- ture of Eastern civilization has been ever weak to resist foreign aggression. We have not only permitted the Mon- gol to destroy the unity of Asia, but have allowed him to crush the life of Indian and Chinese culture. From both the thrones of Peking and Delhi, the descendants of Jenghiz Khan per- petuated a system of despotism con- trary to the traditional policies of the lands they had subjugated. Entire lack of sympathy between the con- 16 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN querors and the conquered, the intro- duction of an ahen official language, ihe refusal to the native of any vital participation in administration, toge- ther with the dreadful clash of race- ideals and religious beliefs, all com- bined to produce a mental shock and anguish of spirit from which the In- dians and the Chinese have never re- covered. Such scholarship as was al- lowed to siu^ive, was confined to those servile minds who submitted meekly to barbaric patronage. What was left of original intellectual vigor was heard only among the despairing echoes of the forest, or in the savage laughter of the bazaar. Art thenceforth becomes either ultra-conventional or else bizarre and grotesque. Attempts to overthrow the foreign yoke were not lacking, and some of 16 THE NIGHT OF ASIA them were even successful. But the disintegration of the national con- sciousness under alien tyranny made renationalization almost impossible, and the native dynasties were unable to withstand fresh waves of outside ag- gression. In China, the Ming or Bright dynasty, which wrested the gov- ernment from the Mongols in the mid- dle of the fourteenth century, soon be- came a prey to internal discords. Scarcely had the destruction attendant on the Mongol reign been repaired, when, near the end of the sixteenth cen- tury, a fresh invasion came from the north, and the Manchus tore the scep- ter from the native rulers. In spite of the strenuous efforts made by the wiser statesmen of this new dynasty, no com- plete fusion of the Manchus and the Chinese has ever been accomplished. 2 ^rj THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN To-day the Celestial Empire is so di- vided against itself that it is powerless to repel outside attack. Europe, with her iron grasp on some of her most im- portant ports, has even contemplated the partition of the whole of China. So in India the reactionary uprising of the Mahrattas and the Sikhs against the Mohammedan tyrants, though parti- ally successful, did not crystallize into a universal expression of patriotism. This lack of unity enabled a Western power to shape her destinies. Bereft of the spirit of initiative, tired of impotent revolts, and deprived of le- gitimate ambitions, the Chinese and the Indian of to-day have come to prostrate themselves before the inevitable. Some among them find refuge in the memory of past grandeur, thus hardening the crust of tradition and exclusiveness ; 18 THE NIGHT OF ASIA while the souls of others, wafted among ethereal dreams, seek solace in an ap- peal to the unknown. The Night of Asia, which enshrouds them, is not, perhaps, without its own subtle beauty. It reminds us of the deep glorious nights we know so well in the East, — listless like wonder, serene like sadness, opalescent like love. One may touch the stars behind the veil where man meets spirit. One may listen to the secret cadence of nature beyond the border where sound bows to silence. Japan, who had proved herself equal to the task of repelling the Mongol invasion, found little difficulty in re- sisting that attempt at Western en- croachment which, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, came in the form of the Shimabara Rebellion, in- stigated by the Jesuits. It has been 19 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN our boast that no foreign conqueror ever polluted the soil of Japan, but these attempts at aggression from the outside hardened our insular preju- dice into a desire for complete isolation from the rest of the world. Soon after the Jesuit war the building of vessels large enough to ride the high seas was forbidden, and no one was allowed to leave our shores. Our sole point of contact with the outside world was at the port of Nagasaki, where the Chi- nese and the Dutch were permitted, under strict surveillance, to carry on trade. For the space of nearly two hundred and seventy years we were as one buried alive! Yet a worse fate was in store for us. The Tokugawa shoguns, who brought about this remarkable isolation of Japan, ruled the country from 1600 to 20 THE NIGHT OF ASIA 1868, and threw the invisible network of their tyranny over all the nation. From the highest to the lowest, all were entangled in a subtle web of mutual espionage, and every element of indi- viduality was crushed under the weight of unbending formalism. Deprived of all stimulus from without, and impris- oned within our own island realm, we groped amid a maze of tradition. Dark- est over us lay the Night of Asia. 21 II THE CHRYSALIS THE Tokugawa tyrants, who initia- ted the policy of strict seclusion, were the successors of various lines of shoguns who, as military regents of the Mikado, had, since the twelfth century, usurped the government of Japan. Be- fore that period, Japan was under the personal rule of the Mikado, who, with the assistance of court functionaries, reigned over the country from Kioto. The over-centrahzation of the imperial bureaucracy, however, was the cause of its own decay. Its neglect of provin- cial administration led to local disturb- ances and the creation of baronial es- 22 THE CHRYSALIS tates, over which the Kioto court exer- cised no active control. The real au- thority thus came into the hands of the strongest baronial power, whose repre- sentative, vested by the Mikado with the title of shogun, or commander-in- chief, ruled the country as regent, the Mikado retaining but a nominal sov- ereignty over the empire. The first, or Kamakura, shogunate, so called from the city which its repre- sentatives made their capital, exercised the powers of government from 1186 to 1333. This was followed by a tem- porary restitution of power to the Mi- kado ; but the reins of government soon fell into the hands of another line of shoguns, the Ashikaga, who from 1336 to 1573 ruled the country from Kioto itself. The fall of the Ashikaga shogunate was followed by a long period 23 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN of civil war, during which the various great barons struggled for supremacy. Out of this state of turmoil arose that Napoleonic genius, Taiko Hideyoshi, who, born a peasant, died, in 1598, the master of unified Japan. His son was, however, unable to retain the authority left him by his father, and the dic- tatorship of the empire devolved, in 1600, on lyeyasu, the first of the To- kugawa shoguns. The Tokugawa shogunate differed from those preceding it in that it was virtually a monarchy, despite its ap- parent feudalistic form. Even under the great Taiko, the government of the country was conducted by a council composed of five of the most powerful barons, but under the Tokugawa re- gime it became purely autocratic. lye- yasu framed for his descendants a M THE CHRYSALIS course of policy which enabled them to retain their rule through fourteen generations, until the recent restoration of the Mikado in 1868. He not merely- curtailed the power of the barons until they were such only in name, but erected safeguards against every pos- sible source of danger to his dynasty. He not only cut us off from all outside intercourse, but so separated the differ- ent classes of society, that the idea of national unity became completely lost. The subtleness of his machinations is manifest not less in his elaborate scheme for maintaining military ascen- dancy than in the way in which he took advantage of our own idiosyncrasies and secret vanities to disarm all oppo- sition to his rule. In order that he might yoke us unresistingly to the car of routine, he soothed our feelings and 25 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN delighted our souls by appeals to that love and worship for the past that is one of our national instincts. Our bonds were, in fact, largely of our own weaving, and lyeyasu but lulled us to sleep, unmindful of the future, within the chrysalis of tradition. Perhaps it is for this, that he knew us only too well, we execrate his memory to-day. The mechanism of the Tokugawa rule cannot be adequately described in brief; not only is it exceedingly com- plicated, but it is without striking par- allel in the history of any country. It affords the peculiar spectacle of a so- ciety perfectly isolated and self -com- plete, which, acting and reacting upon itself, produced worlds within worlds, each with its separate life and ideals, and its own distinct expressions in art 26 THE CHRYSALIS and literature. It exhibits all the sub- tleness of European class distinction, plus the element of caste as understood in India. We can here but indicate its main phases. First, over all was the Mikado. That sacred conception is the thought-in- heritance of Japan from her very be- ginning. Mythology has consecrated it, history has endeared it, and poetry has idealized it. Buddhism has enriched it with that reverence which India pays to the " Protector of the Law," and Confucianism has confirmed it with the loyalty which China offers to the "Son of Heaven." The Mikado may cease to govern, but he always reigns. He ex- ists not by divine right, but by divine law, — a fact of man and nature. He is always there, like our beloved mountain of Fuji, which stands eternally in silent 27 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN beauty, or like the glorious sea which forever washes our shore. We must remember, however, that the political significance of the Mikado has not always been the same. As we are often unconscious of the every-day facts of nature, because of their un- questioned existence, so we became un- conscious of the Mikado, and basked in the daylight, unmindful of the sun above. Clouds of successive usurpa- tions long obscured the heavens, so that devotion to the Solar Throne became a distant though never entirely forgot- ten homage. By the sixteenth century, when lyeyasu assumed the shogunate and became in reahty absolute mon- arch of Japan, all memory of the per- sonal rule of the Mikado had been lost for four long centuries. The Mikado's court at Kioto, the former capital of THE CHRYSALIS the imperial government, was still ex- istent, owing to its past prestige, but it was only a faint reflection of its former glory. The great genius of lyeyasu is ap- parent in his full recognition of the Mikado in the national scheme. In strong contrast to the arrogance and utter neglect which the preceding sho- guns displayed toward the court, he spared no effort to show his respect. He augmented the imperial revenues, invited the daimios (feudal lords) to participate in rebuilding the imperial palace, restored the court ceremonial and etiquette, and was unceasing in his ministrations to the welfare of the im- perial household. He even started the unprecedented ceremony of the sho- gun paying personal homage to the throne, and a brilliant pageant yearly S9 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN passed from his castle of Yedo (now known as Tokio), dazzling the de- hghted eyes of the populace as it wended its way slowly toward Kioto. All this was flattering to the national love of tradition. It was considered as heralding the advent of the mil- lennium. But behind this appearance of loy- alty to the throne lay hidden the sub- tlest snares of the Tokugawas. If they recognized the necessity of the im- perial cult, they determined that they alone should be its high-priests, and that others should worship at a respectful distance. In the name of sanctity, the Kioto court was deprived of those last remnants of political authority which former regencies had suffered it to re- tain. A strong garrison was stationed in Kioto, ostensibly for the protection 30 THE CHRYSALIS of the palace, but its members were cho- sen from the tried body-guard of the Tokugawas themselves. They contin- ued to invite one of the imperial princes to take the monastic vows and reside in Yedo as lord abbot of the Uyeno tem- ple, by which means they always virtu- ally held at their capital a hostage from the Kioto court. No daimio was al- lowed to seek audience of the Mikado without their consent. The Mikado, unseen and unheard, commanded a mysterious awe. His palace now became the " Forbidden In- terior " in the strict sense of the word. The ancient political significance of the court was lost in a semi-religious con- ception. No wonder that the Western- ers who first visited our country wrote that there were two rulers in Japan, the temporal in Yedo, and the spiri- 31 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN tual in Kioto. In spite of the constant loyalty which our forefathers expressed for the Mikado in Tokugawa days, they had none of the fiery enthusiasm which inspires us to-day. With them it was symbohsm; with us it is a living reality. Next to the Mikado, and foremost in social rank (the imperial line being considered above all class distinctions), came the kuges, or court aristocracy of Kioto. The exalted position which they held in society arose from their association with the Mikado. From their position near the throne, they were called poetically the Friends of the Moon and Guests of the Cloud. Their fortunes waxed and waned with those of the imperial household, to which, regardless of the immense political changes that have come over Japan THE CHRYSALIS since the days when they actively par- ticipated in the conduct of the empire, they have ever remained faithful. Herein again lies another remarkable example of that obstinate tenacity which makes the Japanese race pre- serve the old while it welcomes the new. The kuges were the successors of those princely bureaucrats who par- ticipated in the imperial rule from the year Q4i5 to 1166. The old system of government, together with its social customs and art expressions, was based mainly on that of the Tang dynasty of China. The kuges have always re- mained guardians of its ideals. While China was trying one policy after an- other, and Japan herself was passing through various different phases of feudalism toward the monarchism of the Tokugawas, the kuges continued " 3S THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN to live the life which preceded the twelfth century. Their costumes were of the eleventh, their etiquette of the tenth century. They read Chinese with the intonation of the Tang period, and danced to the classic measure of the Bugaku music, the inheritance of an era preceding the ninth century. They delighted in the purism of the Fujiwara poetry, and affected the technic of the ancient school of paint- ing. It is to their devotion to the past that we owe the preservation of the Kharma-kanda (ritualistic obser- vances) of India and the early Buddhist doctrines of China. The Tokugawa government hu- mored and honored the court nobles be- cause of their association with the Mi- kado and the place they occupied in the history of the nation. The kuges were given precedence over the daimios, and 34 THE CHRYSALIS their incomes, if not greatly increased, were at least assured to them. This last must have been gratifying to those of them who remembered the disastrous days when they had to sell autograph poems for their sustenance. They were contented, and the Tokugawas kept them well disposed toward themselves by intermarriage and timely financial aid. All political power, however, was completely taken from the kuges, not- withstanding the high-sounding titles which they were still allowed to retain. The duty of the privy councilor would consist in debating on the merits of a love-ditty, and that of the high min- ister of state in presiding over a com- petition of nightingales. It was in those days of refined folly that the queen in our game of chess was sol- emnly abolished by imperial command. Theoretically, next to the court no- 35 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN bility of Kioto in social position, but actually far prouder and more power- ful, came the daimios, or feudal lords (literally grandees), nearly three hun- dred in number. These were divided into classes — the Tozama daimios, who were the descendants of the barons of former days, and the daimios of recent creation, who had been ennobled by the Tokugawas, either for their services, or because they traced their Hneage to some member of that family. In the early days of Tokugawa rule, the To- zama daimios were a source of great danger, as their ancient warlike spirit remained as yet untamed. The meth- > ods that lyeyasu and his successors em- ployed in maintaining military ascen- dancy, and in generally bringing the daimios under absolute control, are a study in themselves. Any map of Japan THE CHRYSALIS in the early days of the Tokugawas will show the feudatory provinces so dis- tributed that all political combination between them was rendered impossible. On such a map we will find the daimi- ates of Tokugawa creation, which were constantly being augmented in size and strength, wedged in between the earlier daimiates. Gradually all strategical points on the main roads of communi- cation throughout the country were taken from the Tozama daimios, and either held by the shogun himself or put into the hands of his minions. The practice of assembling the daimios at Yedo to sit in conference over ques- tions of territorial rights soon led to the inauguration of a system by which each daimio was obliged to leave his terri- tory every alternate year and pay per- sonal homage to the shogun, while his 37 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN family were required to reside perma- nently at the capital as hostages. In this manner the greater part of such time as the daimios were not under im- mediate control of the shogun was con- sumed in journeying to and from their provinces, so that but little opportunity was given them to form or carry out conspiracies against the government. The newly enacted law of inheritance demanded the approval of the govern- ment in each case of succession to the daimiates, and also in all cases of mar- riage. A constant drain was main- tained on their feudatory income by inviting the daimios to assist in repair- ing the imperial palace, and in other public works. Jealousy and rivalry were encouraged to such an extent that they resulted in a lamentable condition of mutual distrust and espionage. 38 THE CHRYSALIS Those Tozama daimios who revolted against this state of things soon found out their impotence, and were inva- riably punished by the diminution, transference, or confiscation of their territorial possessions, — the latter pen- alty attended with death. They were taught to realize that the government of the country, though still feudal in form, had become in reahty an absolute monarchy, — patriarchal and benevo- lent, but thoroughly despotic. They soon found that their smallest actions were watched with unceasing vigilance, so that they began to be distrust- ful of even their own retainers. This vigorous surveillance was not confined to the Tozama daimios alone. Dread- ing the combination of administrative power with hereditary influence, the Tokugawas invariably chose their cab- 39 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN inet ministers from among the smaller daimios of their own creation. The powerful members of their own aristoc- racy were watched as strictly as were the Tozama lords, a fact which ex- plains why all the daimios were so luke- warm in their sympathy toward the Tokugawa government during the struggles of the Restoration. Below the daimios came the samu- rai, or sworded gentry, four hundred thousand strong. They served either immediately under the shogun himself, or else under the banners of the various daimios. Their appointments were hereditary, and their blood was kept pure by the prohibition of all marriage with the lower classes, except in case of the foot-soldiers, who constituted the lowest rank of samurai. They had the right and obligation of wearing two 40 THE CHRYSALIS swords and bearing family crests. Within their own ranks were many class distinctions, each with its special privileges. The estates of high-class samurai were often wider and richer than those of the smaller daimios. Un- der the code of the samurai, however, all enjoyed that equality that belongs to comradeship in arms; and even as a king of England or France delighted in the title of first gentleman of the land, so the shogun considered himself first samurai of the empire. But with the advent of the Toku- gawa regime the existence of the dai- mio and the samurai, like that of the court aristocracy of Kioto, became an anachronism. The samurai, a product of the feudal period intervening be- tween the fall of the imperial bureau- cracy in the twelfth century and the 41 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN rise of the Tokugawa monarchy in the seventeenth century, clung with singu- lar tenacity to their past ideals. Their art was that of the Kano school, a re- flection of the fifteenth century. Their music and drama were the No^ the six- teenth-century opera of Japan. Their costumes, architecture, and language retained the style of the time imme- diately preceding the Tokugawa pe- riod. Their religion followed those Zen doctrines which had been the vital inspiration of the feudal age. In fact, the whole code of the samurai was an heirloom left to them by the Kama- kura and Ashikaga knights, in whose days the whole nation was a camp. >, lyeyasu, accepting Japan as it was, , and utilizing its idiosyncrasies, kept the military class quiet through its own i love of hereditary conventions and 4:2 THE CHRYSALIS military obedience. Everything was regulated by precedent and routine. The son of a samurai or a daimio fol- lowed exactly in the footsteps of his father, and dreamed of no change. By giving the samurai a Confucian educa- tion, the Tokugawas both pacified his warlike instincts and encouraged his worship of tradition. The blessing of that rule which they termed the Great Peace of Tokugawa was so constantly dinned into his ears that he hoped and believed that it would be everlasting. The life of a Tokugawa daimio or samurai was not devoid of amusements. Besides his fencing-bouts and jiujitsu matches, his falconry and games of archery, he had his wo-dances, his tea- ceremonies, and those interminable banquets at which he would recount the exploits of his ancestors. Moreover, 43 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN much time might be consumed in the composition of bad Chinese poems be- neath the cherry-trees. He was often wealthy and always extravagant, for his contempt for gold was ingrained. He would squander a fortune for a rare Sung vase or a Masamune blade. The marvelous workmanship of the Gotos in metal, and of the Komas in gold lacquer was the result of his pa- tronage. It is to the disappearance of the daimio and the samurai that Japan owes her sudden fall of standard in ar- tistic taste. Such samurai as had been thrown out of employment either through dis- missal by their lord or the extinction of the daimiate under which they served, were called ronin (the unattached). Sometimes a second son, with literary talents or scholastic ambitions, became 44 THE CHRYSALIS a ronin, and supported himself by teach- ing. The ronins retained all the rights and privileges of the samurai, while their state of independence gave them an individuality and freedom of thought unknown among their more orthodox brethren. It was through the ronin scholars that the first message of the Restoration was to be announced to the nation. Fourth in the social scale came the commoners, ranked in the order of farmers, artisans, and traders. As in the case of the rise of European mon- archies the populace ever came to the help of the sovereign against the no- bles, so in Japan the Tokugawas found in the commoners their best al- lies against the daimios, and conse- quently granted them many privileges hitherto unknown. Then life and prop- 45 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN erty of the masses found a security un- precedented in the days of the preda- tory barons. Within a limited sphere, they were even allowed to develop self- government. Industry and commerce flourished unmolested. Agriculture was specially encom-aged, as rice was the medium in which the revenues of the government were taken. It is to the commoners that we owe the arts and crafts which have made Japan famous. It is to them that we are indebted for our modern drama and popular litera- ture, the color-prints of Torii and Ho- kusai. Toward the commoners also, how- ever, the Tokugawas pursued their policy of segregation, inclosing them by barriers of tradition within a sepa- rate compartment of their social struc- ture. They were welcome to their spe- THE CHRYSALIS cial vocations and amusements, but they were forbidden to trespass on what belonged to the higher orders. They were not allowed to wear family crests, or even to bear surnames. They could have their theater, with its line of dangiuros (actors), but might not,^^^ indulge in the wo-music of the samurai, ' or the classic dance of the Kioto no- bility. As a precaution against an uprising, all the commoners were disarmed. An immense body of secret police was em- ployed to watch their movements, and any breath of discontent met with se- vere punishment. Silent fear haunted them, for all the walls seemed to have grown ears. Theirs it was to work and obey, and not to question. However rich or accomplished, commoners born must die commoners. Hemmed in by 47 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN inexorable customs and restrictions, their energy had to vent itself either through the frivolity of life or the sad- ness of religion. Can we wonder that to the more serious commoners religion consisted in an appeal to the infinite mercy of Amitaba for absorption in that divine love, the expression of which is so marked in the Bhaktas of India? Can we blame the weaker and more frivolous among them for seeking forgetfulness in the idealization of foUy? Below the commoners, and, in fact, ostracized entirely from the social scheme, were the outcasts known as Yettas. They were the descendants of criminals, who, in early times, were not allowed to intermarry with other fam- ilies, and so formed a distinct caste by themselves. Some of them became 48 THE CHRYSALIS quite wealthy, owing to their posses- sion of a monopoly in the handling of leather and hide, an occupation consid- ered unclean, according to the Bud- dhist canons. It was from their ranks that the public executioners were ap- pointed. Before the Restoration, when all men were made equal in the eye of the law, any contact with this class was considered a pollution. The national consciousness, divided within itself by the dams and dikes of its own conventions, could but narrow and finally stagnate. The flow of spontaneity ceased with the end of the seventeenth century. The microscopic tendency of later Oriental thought be- came in us accentuated to a degree un- known even in China. Our life grew to be like those miniature and dwarf trees that were typical products of the Toku- * 49 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN gawa age. Only in art and litera- ture, essentially the world of freedom, some vitality is to be found. The self -concentration of a nation during that period has given a peculiar charm to Japanese art. The worship of tra- ditions, which is the foundation of style and elegance, has given a subtle re- finement to all its expressions. Yet this very classicism was the enemy of the romanticist efforts, for true indi- viduality was subdued under the gen- eral trend of formalism. Again, the demarcation of social life and ideals prevented any creative mind from mir- roring the whole of national loves and aspirations. Despite a certain clever- ness in details, or an occasional dash of wild fancy, no painter of the caliber of Korin,* or poet with the strength of ^ Korin, a great colorist in the latter half of the seventeenth century. 50 THE CHRYSALIS Chikamatsu/ is to be found. Some, like beautiful pools, may reflect the shadows of contemporary thought; but in not one do we get a vision of the limitless ocean of the ideal. Yet the hibernation of Japan within her chrysalis must have been pleasant in itself, or the nation would not have slumbered so long. Old folks are still to be found who cherish the memory of those days of leisure, when no one was so vulgar as to think for himself, when life was elegant, if it was formal. There were always chances of being exquisitely foolish, if one was wise enough to avail himself of them. Said Kampici, the Chinese Machiavelli, in telling the secret of absolutism twenty- two centuries ago: "Amuse them, tire them not, let them not know." lye- 1 Chikamatsu, his contemporary, the Japanese Shakspere. 51 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN yasu, a past master of craft, followed these injunctions but too faithfully. We were amused, we cared not for change, we did not seek to know. 59 Ill BUDDHISM AND CONFUCIANISM SOME critics see in the encourage- ment given to learning that flaw in the Tokugawa system of govern- ment which caused its ultimate down- fall. Under the regime inaugurated by lyeyasu every child in the empire was obliged to learn to read and write, under the instruction of the local priests, thus giving a certain amount of education to even the meanest peasant, while innumerable academies were es- tablished throughout the length and breadth of the land. It is doubtless true that the result of these measures was to prepare the national mind for 53 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN receiving the message of the Restora- tion. Yet, when we come to examine into the nature of the instruction so freely given to the people by the To- kugawas, we shall find that perhaps lyeyasu and his immediate successors were not so far amiss in their calcu- lations, after all. All branches of knowledge are inter- esting, but some courses of study tend to encourage ignorance, and such were the courses in Buddhism and Confu- cianism which formed the sole curricu- lum in the Tokugawa academies. To those who have seen our landscapes studded with pagodas, and heard our temple bells calling from every hill, or to those who remember the great halls of learning in the various daimiates, and the chant of reciting voices in every Tokugawa village, it must seem 54 BUDDHISM AND CONFUCIANISM strange that Buddhism and Confucian-^ ^ ism played so small a part in the Res- toration. The fact is that their teach- l^ ings never interfered in matters of "^ state, and their influence was solely directed toward enforcing ideas of sub- mission and the love of peace. We do not agree with those enemies of lyeyasu who accuse him of being ... a skeptic and utilizing ethics and re- ligion only as a means to further his own ends. He was a great statesman who combined many of the characteris- tics of Cromwell and Richelieu. He was sincere, and acted, according to his lights, for what he considered the best interests of the nation. The following instance of his humanity is enough to refute those charges of heartlessness which have been brought against him. Noticing, during one of his campaigns, 65 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN that the enemy were using loose-shafted arrows, the heads of which remained in the wound and caused a cruel and lingering death, he gave orders that all the Tokugawa arrowheads should be securely fastened and lacquered to the shafts. We believe, however, that the " Old Badger," as he is often nick- named, knew full well the nature of Buddhist and Confucian teaching, and that his astuteness and knowledge of men did not fail to recognize the bear- ing which the Oriental philosophy of his day might have upon the further- ance of his system of government. Buddhism was never a menace to the . state. The reason for this lies far back ^ \ in the antithesis of the Oriental con- ^n*j caption of the social and supersocial - \ order. By that antithesis the ethical ^ life of the householder is distinguished 56 BUDDHISM AND CONFUCIANISM from the religious life of the wander- ing recluse, the two standing in con- trast, though not necessarily antagonis- tic. Eastern society, with all its beauty of harmonized duties and intercalated occupations, is based on mutual depen-, dencies, and at best can but end in con- ventionalism— the moral bondage of the commune. Religion, on the other hand, furnishes the means of true emancipation, and constitutes the acme of individualism. The ideal monk is the child of freedom, who, dying to the mundane, is reborn to the realm of the spirit. He is like the lotus which rises in purity above the mire. He is silent, like the forest in which he meditates; untrammeled, like the wind that blows his gown around him. He is of no caste and no country. What if thrones are overthrown and nations enslaved: 6T THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN did not Buddha, the great teacher of re- nunciation, watch with undimmed eyes the total annihilation of his own kingly race? Society, the world of tradition and ethics, looked with respect on the world of freedom, and gazed with wonder at the achievements of the spiritual work- ers who left behind them the boundary lines of school and sect as they trav- eled through the regions of the unex- plored toward the light. Chinese man- darins dreamed, amid palatial luxuries, of the bamboo forest, and sighed at the call of the pine-clad hills. The highest desire of an Indian or Japanese house- holder was to reach the age at which, leaving worldly cares to his children, he might learn that higher Hf e of a re- cluse known as Banaprasta or Inkyo. In donning the monkish robe, a priv- 58 BUDDHISM AND CONFUCIANISM ilege open to all, he found release from . ^the world of convention. It was in / order to escape from social trammels^ . j that our artists shaved their heads and \ assumed the guise of priests. y But the social and the supersocial worlds never clashed, for each was the counterpart of the other. In Indian society we find the Shramanic as the necessary counterbalance to the Brah- manic ideal, while in China the same positions are held by Taoism and Con- fucianism. Herein lies the secret of that toleration which has made of In- dia a museum of religions, and has caused China to welcome, so long as they do not interfere with her political system, the alien faiths of Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Nestorianism, Mo- hammedanism, and modern Christian- ity. The existence of this twofold 59 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN development also explains, in a certain measure, that attitude of liberalism and apparent indifference which our jmodern statesmen of Japan display toward religious questions, — an atti- tude often construed as a false idea of European statecraft, if not of agnos- ticism. The demarcation of the polit- ical from the religious life, the divorce of state and church, is no new idea with us. Indeed, despite our temples and monasteries, we have no church. The innate individuahsm of the Buddhist ideal, unlike that of the papal church of Europe, which is even now a source of concern to some nations, has ever prevented the formation of a sin- gle powerful organization to impose its influence on the state. The tem- poral power exercised by some of our monks was due solely to their personal 60 BUDDHISM AND CONFUCIANISM influence over the Mikado or his officers, in the imperial days before the feudal period. It was a sort of mundane of- fering laid at the feet of holiness, and was the temporary result of a purely personal relationship. The priesthood, as a body or sect, rarely tried to retain authority over the government, and the social consciousness was always eager to reclaim what it considered its own special function. A sovereign might be carried away by his spiritual zeal, but the dynasty invariably recovered its equilibrium. With the rise of the Ka- makura shogunate,the Buddhist power, which had its root in the devotion of the Kioto court, dechned. The ultra-indi- , M^ vidualistic sect of Zen, which at this kl.*-^ time became the leading school of W** thought, made no pretense to political r ambition. During the turbulent age,^ 61 ^ THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN that followed, the predatory attacks of neighboring barons on the monasteries caused the establishment of an armed monkhood. These warrior-priests guarded the sanctuaries, and, either alone or in alliance with various dai- mios, were a prominent feature in the Ashikaga wars, where they are often found foremost in the fray, their robe of mercy ill concealing the blood- stained mail beneath. They had, how- ever, almost disappeared by the time of lyeyasu, when the Hongangi, the last sect which still boasted of some military adherents, was easily made to submit to the authority of the shogun. The policy of lyeyasu toward Bud- dhism is characteristic of the funda- mental idea of Eastern statesmanship. Himself a Confucian, he counted among his best friends the three great 62 BUDDHISM AND CONFUCIANISM Buddhist monks of his ase. He would . ... . ilv^^^ have tolerated even Christianity, if the! Jesuit movement had not covered aj political menace. He guaranteed the privileges of the monasteries, restored and insured their revenues, and granted funds for the publication of religious works. He even enforced ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and punished by the pillory and banishment all those who broke the monastic vows. But at the same time he debarred the priest- hood from any participation in the gov- ernment. He abolished the custom of employing Buddhist agents in diplo- matic amenities with Korea, and ap- pointed a lay officer to control all af- fairs connected with the clergy. The influence of Buddhism was on the wane. ,. Under the protection afforded to thep^ monkhood, and the cultured ease theyl ^ 63 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN enjoyed, the monasteries became uni- versities whose occupants were famed more for their erudition than for their holiness. The single new sect which originated in that era differed from the others only in discipline, a subject widely discussed in that age of order and strict regime. Like Buddhism, Confucianism had in its later developments become super- social and indiif erent to politics through its absorption of Taoist and Buddhist ideals. In China, from the latter part of the Tang dynasty, Confucianism tended to become religious instead of being purely ethical, as in previous .^;. days. In Japan this tendency was ^c Wen more pronounced, for during our tfeudal age all branches of learning Iwere confined to the Buddhists, so that the early teachers in the Tokugawa 64 BUDDHISM AND CONFUCIANISM academies were mostly monks who had been induced to return to a secular life in order to impart secular teaching. They did not give up their Buddhist costume for a long time, and used to shave their heads even after they began to wear swords like other samurai. They were all followers of the school of Shiuki, a Neo-Confucian of the' Sung dynasty, and the teaching they imparted accorded well with their dress. Neo-Confucianism, a product of that remarkable age of "illumination," soj rich in creative efforts both in art and^ literature, aimed at a synthesis of Tao-j ist, Buddhist, and Confucian thought, ' and marks the result of a brilliant ef- fort to mirror the whole of Asiatic con- sciousness. Its exponents differed in their interpretation of the Confucian - classic, according to their mental afiini- 6 65 %JJ...S^ li^l-^<^. ^«.--'-^' ^^-kl^<^^ THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN ties with Chinese or Indian thought. Some of them Were called " strayed Zen," in the same sense as Sanchara- charya, the Neo-Brahmanist, was ac- cused of being a " disguised Buddhist." Shiuki, however, through his greater leaning toward the doctrines of the Chinese sage, was recognized as the central figure of Neo-Confucianism. His Commentaries on Confucius were made official text-books by the Em- peror Yan-lu of the Ming dynasty, and ] his school was accepted as orthodox by lyeyasu. The general trend of Neo-Confucianism, even with Shiuki, tended to make it abstract and specu- lative, so that as a result its votaries ^' differed but slightly from the followers ifv^ i.of Buddha, making self -concentration an important part of mental exercise. The Ming scholars, with their formal- jj dUjC^v^-t/vt^ ^! CL^A Y'^^'^^'^^ u'W-'T^^' BUDDHISM AND CONFUCIANISM istic instincts, dogmatized the instruc- tions of Shiuki, and wasted their en- ergy on his abstract rules of morality and terminology,— an example fol- lowed by the Japanese academicians.^ Confucianism was thus deprived of its' very essence— practical ethics. " As foolish as a scholar," was a common witticism of Tokugawa days. Two schools of heresy tried to stem the tide and infuse vitality into the Confucian doctrines, but they commanded an in- significant minority, for the Tokugawa censorship was rigorous in suppressingV all schools of thought that dared to dif- ' fer from the orthodox teaching of its/ own academy. Thus the knowledge that lyeyasu imparted to the nation was, after all, of a kind that gave no great stimulus to social activity. His system of in- 67 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN rstruction formed as much a part of his j scheme for preserving absolutism as I any of the military precautions he took against the power of the Kioto court or that of the daimiates. Yet it is but fair to say that the encourage- ment of learning inaugurated by him had much to do with the formation of modern Japanese character. Buddhism and Neo-Confucianism (which is truly Buddhist in its nature) gave to the na- tion that meditative trend of mind which makes it possible for it to face emer- gencies with calmness. If he did not initiate an era of progress, at least he taught stability. If it had not been for this, the fierce turmoil of the Restora- tion, with its violent accession of West- em thought, would have swept Japan from her ancient anchorage into an un- known and stormy sea. 68 BUDDHISM AND CONFUCIANISM Asia is nothing if not spiritual, buty^tij, the man of the spirit is not one of I names or forms. He comes, we wist not whence, and, like another Lohen- grin, vanishes when revealed, to fol- low the quest mysterious in regions un- known. True spirituality forsook the luxury of the monastery and the ease of the academy, to take its rugged seat in the breast of the lonely ronin-scholar. Like the snow-covered narcissus pining for a glimpse of heaven, its silent soul bore the quenchless prophecy of spring. 69 IV THE VOICE FROM WITHIN IT seems to be the general impression among foreigners that it was the West who, with the touch of a magic wand, suddenly roused us from the sleep of centuries. The real cause of our awakening, however, came from within. Our national consciousness had already begun to stir when, in the year 1853, Commodore Perry reached our shores, and had waited but for that event to in- augurate a universal movement toward renationalization. Three separate schools of thought united to cause the regeneration of Ja- pan. The first taught her to inquire; 70 THE VOICE FROM WITHIN the second, to act ; the third, for what to act. All were tiny streams at their out- set, finding their source in the solitary souls of independent thinkers who nursed them always under censure, of- ten in banishment. They even coursed from within the prison walls and trickled from the scaffold. They were almost hidden beneath the rank vege- tation of conventionalism until the mo- ment when they united to leap in cat- aracts of patriotic zeal inundating the whole nation. The first, known as the Kogaku ( School of Classic Learning) , arose at/ the end of the seventeenth century as a protest against the dogmas of the gov- ernmental academies. Its originators claimed that the Neo-Confucianism of Shiuki as taught in the academies was not really Confucianism, but a new- 71 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN f angled interpretation of Buddhism and Taoism. They invited scholars to return to the original texts of the sage himself and iind anew the real meaning thereof. It was a bold stand for them to take, considering that Shiuki's commentaries were considered orthodox and their au- thority had remained unquestioned both in China and Japan since the Sung Illu- mination of the eleventh century. This school for the first time frees the Toku- gawa mind from the trammels of f or- mahsm, though its liberahsm does not result in any particular conclusions. Its very attitude, that of inquiry, pre- vents it from crystallizing into any single solution of Confucianism. Some of its adherents, like Sorai, go as far as to maintain that Confucius was purely a political philosopher and not a teacher of ethics. Some, on the other hand, like 72 THE VOICE FROM WITHIN Yamaga-Soko, to whom we owe the de- velopment of the Samurai Code on a Confucian basis, found in Japanese in- stitutions the expression of the moral law of the Chinese sage. Yet however they differed individually in their con- clusions, they united in being heretical toward the orthodox Tokugawa notions, and all were objects of disapprobation to the authorities, — Yamaga-Soko, who commanded a considerable following, being banished from Yedo to the dis- tant and insignificant daimiate of Akho. Yet even during his confine- ment there his personality inspired the well-known Forty-seven Ronins to achieve their memorable feat of loyalty, remarkable not only as revealing a new ideal of samurai-hood, but eloquent in its silent protest against the Tokugawa regime. 73 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN The second school, which started at nearly the same time as the first, is called the School of Oyomei, from the Japanese pronunciation of Wangyang- ming, the name of its founder. This remarkable man was a great general as well as scholar who lived in China at the beginning of the sixteenth century, under the Ming dynasty. He never ceased to discourse even during the brilliant campaigns in which he was vic- torious over the rebels in Southern China. His philosophy was an ad- vance on the Neo-Confucianism of Shiuki, whose doctrines, however, he ac- cepted in the main. His principal con- tribution lay in his definition of know- ledge. With him all knowledge was useless unless expressed in action. To know was to be. Virtue was real in so far only as it was manifested in 74 THE VOICE FROM WITHIN deeds. The whole universe was' inces- santly surging on to higher spheres of development, calHng upon all to join in its glorious advance. To reaHze their teachings it was necessary to live the life of the sages themselves, to consecrate one's whole energy to the service of mankind. -Thus he brought Confu- cianism again into its true domain, that, of practical ethics. His doctrines appear to have had only a temporary influence on China itself, but they possessed a pecuHar charm for the Japanese mind, and later furnished one of the principal incen- tives toward the accomplishment of the Restoration. One of the pioneers of this school in Japan has produced such an impression on the moral life of the districts around Lake Biwa that his memory is still cherished as that of the 76 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN "Living Confucius." Another, devot- ing himself to the material welfare of the people, has left in his engineering feats for the irrigation of the Okayama provinces a monument to the zeal in- spired by Oyomei ; yet he had to suffer for heresy and died in exile and dis- grace. The Oyomian scholars of Japan went further than the Chinese in their dynamic conception of the cosmic force. Their predilection for Indian modes of thought, especially for that of the Zen sect of Buddhism, made them lay great stress on the idea of change, with the result that they came to conclu- sions curiously akin to many of those held by modern evolutionists. The Buddhas of the past were not the Bud- dhas of the future, for they must in- clude the former and something more. 76 THE VOICE FROM WITHIN Every new life was built on the debris of the past and amid the tumultuous crash of a myriad of dissolving worlds. A reincarnation was self-realization on ^_. a different plane. How magnificent is change! How beautiful the great transition known as life and death I The Japanese Oyomians delighted in the image of the dragon. Have you seen the dragon? Approach him cau- ) J^ tiously, for no mortal can survive the j sight of his entire body. The Eastern dragon is not the gruesome monster of medieval imagination, but the genius of strength and goodness. He is the spirit of change, therefore of life itself. We associate him with the su- preme power or that sovereign cause which pervades everything, taking new forms according to its surroundings, yet never seen in a final shape. The 77 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN dragon is the great mystery itself. Hidden in the caverns of inaccessible mountains, or coiled in the unf athomed depth of the sea, he awaits the time when he slowly rouses himself into ac- tivity. He unfolds himself in the storm clouds ; he washes his mane in the black- ness of the seething whirlpools. His claws are in the fork of the lightning, his scales begin to glisten in the bark of rain-swept pine-trees. His voice is heard in the hurricane which, scatter- ing the withered leaves of the forest, quickens a new spring. The dragon re- veals himself only to vanish. He is a glorious symbolic image of that elas- ticity of organism which shakes off the inert mass of exhausted matter. Coil- ing again and again on his strength, he sheds his crusted skin amid the battle of elements, and for an instant stands half 78 THE VOICE FROM WITHIN revealed by the brilliant shimmer of his scales. He strikes not till his throat is touched. Then woe to him who dallies with the terrible one ! The dragon is said never to be the same. What flower is? What life? The secret of knowledge, according to the Oyomians, was to penetrate behind the mask which change imposed upon; iaa^ things. So-called facts and forms werel g * merely incidents beneath which the real , o life lay hidden. This they loved to il-|(^UJ lustrate by the Taoist parable of the /J Real Horse. Once upon a time, it is related, a king of China was desirous of procuring the best horse in the world, wherefore he asked Hakuraku, all- knowing in horses, to make search far and wide. After a long time Haku- raku returned and reported to the king that a bay mare on a certain pas- 79 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN ture was the most perfect horse exist- ent. Thereupon the king sent vassals laden with treasures to bring the steed to his court. When, however, they came to the place described by Hakuraku they found not a bay mare, but a black stallion. This they brought back with them, and it was found to be the paragon of equine beauty and strength. To the true connoisseur of horses the real horse ^^ ' was visible in something beyond the sec- Jbu ondary features of color and sex. Even thus it is with all true knowledge, said the Oyomians. The orthodox academicians were doubly hostile to the Oyomei School as a perversion of their own Neo-Confu- cianism. The terror of their censorship lay not so much in open attacks on the doctrines themselves as in the treacher- ous and unexpected manner in which 80 THE VOICE FROM WITHIN they brought punishment upon their holders. Yet, in spite of this, the new idea was fostered and slowly gained ground in those distant daimiates where censorial interference was comparatively slight. It is significant that the two provinces of Satsuma and Choshiu, from which all the great statesmen of modern Japan come, were the chief refuge of this school of philosophy. Among those of our generals and admirals who have distinguished themselves in the Chinese and Russian wars, many were brought up as youths in the principles of Oyo- mei. This it is which makes them calm amid danger, resourceful in plan- ning, and ever alert to meet the dictates of change. It was largely due to the spread of Oyomian philosophy that Japan recognized the dragon amid the * 81 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN boiling ferment of the Restoration. Like the Real Horse of Hakuraku, the spirit of Old Japan, in spite of the ac- cretions of centuries, was still manifest. The Tokugawa authorities had every- thing to fear from the revolutionary nature of the Oyomei doctrine, whose followers hesitated at nothing where their idea of righteousness was con- cerned. It was Oshiwo, a celebrated Oyomei scholar of Osaka, who with all his disciples rose in open revolt when the governor of that city refused for some insufficient reason to grant sub- sistence to the populace during the severe famine of 1837. He fired on the garrison and held them in check while he distributed the contents of the gov- ernment granaries to the famished people, after which he calmly met his death. His mental attitude may be 82 THE VOICE FROM WITHIN well seen where, in an interesting philo- sophical work, he says: " Strike like the lightning, be terrible like the thunder, but remember that the sky itself is al- ways clear above." Neither the heresy of the Classic School nor the virility of the Oyo- mei School would in themselves have evolved the political conception that led to the Restoration. They were, after all, but differentiations in Confucian- .(^r-/^ ism, and Confucianism ordained obedi-^jw^ ence to existing authority provided that Jp^^ the moral Hf e of the community was not thereby destroyed. Hence it was that the Ming scholars offered no resistance to the Manchu rule. It was for this same reason that the Tokugawa Confu- cians, whatever their school, never dreamed of instituting a change in our political system. Oyomei taught to act, THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN but not for what or for whom. This de- ficiency it was the mission of the His- torical School to supply. / The Historical School was not a / heresy, and was therefore rarely re- garded with suspicion by the censors. On the contrary, the Tokugawas them- selves encouraged it, for it accorded • with their traditional policy. The movement began early in their rule with a compilation of the genealogies of the chief families in the empire and the publication of histories redounding to the credit of the Tokugawas themselves. One important history written by the chief academician of his time is inter- esting as evincing the utmost servility ^ to Confucian classicism, in that the au- f^ jthor tries to prove the descent of the ^^y*^ Mikado from the Chinese sages. By the beginning of the eighteenth century 84 THE VOICE FROM WITHIN however, the pure light of research ap- peared in the study of philology. This movement, led by Keichiu-acharya and culminating in the illustrious works of Motoori and Harumij opened up in our ancient poetry and history a new vista of thought. Toward the end of the century the study of archaeology in- creased to such an extent that the Toku- gawa government and wealthy daimios vied with each other in the collection of rare manuscripts and encyclopedic publications on art, while well-known connoisseurs were appointed to inves- tigate and record the treasures of the old monasteries at Nara and Kioto. All this continued to lift the veil which had hung for so many centuries over the past. This was indeed the era of £fir j najssancein Japan. ^^ The acquisition of historical know- 85 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN ledge resulted in the revivification of Shintoism. The purity of this ancient cult had been overflowed by successive waves of continental influence until it had almost entirely lost its original character. In the ninth century it be- came merely a branch of esoteric Bud- dhism and dehghted in mystic symbol- ism, while after the fifteenth century it was entirely Neo- Confucian in spirit and accepted the cosmic interpretation of the Taoists. But with the revival of ancient learning it became divested of these alien elements. Shintoism as for- mulated in the beginning of the nine- teenth century is a religion of ancestrism — a worship of pristine purity handed down from the age of the gods. It ^^' teaches adherence to those ancestral ideals of the Japanese race, simplicity and honesty, obedience to the ancestral 86 THE VOICE FROM WITHIN rule vested in the person of the Mikado, and devotion to the ancestral land on whose consecrated and divine shores no foreign conqueror has ever set his foot. . It called upon Japan to break loose A^ from blind slavery to Chinese and Inj ^ dian ideals, and to rely upon herself. ,/ The historic spirit swept on through the realms of literature, art, and relig- ion, until it finally reached the heart of the samurai. Till then its effects had been brilliant but not momentous, its expressions scholarly and therefore lim- ited in scope. A democratization of the new message is found in the works of the early writers of the last century, among whom the poet-historian Rai- Sanyo stands foremost in rank. It was from his lucid pages that the full mean- ing of the past dawned on the minds of the young samurai and ronins. Their 87 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN memories traveled back to the days when the imperial sanctity was forgot- ten and the chrysanthemum cowered be- fore the cruel blast of Ashikaga arro- gance, while even the palace itself, with none so loyal as to undertake its repair, was sinking in ruin within sight of the Golden Pavilion of the shoguns. Sadly they read the poems of some lonely loyalist who, like a solitary cuckoo, poured his sad song into the moonless night. They dwelt with mingled pride and sorrow on the story of the Emperor Go- daigo, who broke the power of the Ka- makura shogunate and for a time reestablished legitimate rule. They thought of his undaunted courage in raising the country against the usurpers, of his exile to the distant island of Sado, of his miraculous escape in a fishing- 88 THE VOICE FROM WITHIN boat, of his triumphs over the enemy, and of his fastness in the mountain of Yoshino,* where he held his court until the time when the cherry-blossoms cov- ered his mausoleum with their tribute of tender homage. The gaunt image of Masashige rose before them, that hero who fought for the Emperor Godaigo knowing that his cause was already lost. They read how he it was who first dared answer the im- perial summons to fight the usurper, how he planned and carried out the guerrilla warfare which led to a tem- porary restitution of the Mikado's power, and claimed no reward when his work was accomplished. " What is thy last wish?" said he to his brother as, wounded unto death, they both emerged ^ Yoshino, a hill in the Nara prefecture noted from ancient times for its cherry-blossoms. 89 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN from their last terrible battle with the Ashikaga hosts. Smiling, he listened to the swift reply, "I wish to be born again to strike a blow for the Mikado," and said, "Though Buddhists teach that such wishes are sinful and lead to the hell of Asuras, yet not for once only but for seven lives do I wish to be re- bom for that same end " ; then each fell by the other's sword. They read how Masatsura, the son of Mashashige, re- fused the first beauty of the court, who was deeply attached to him, when the Mikado offered her to him as a reward for his hereditary loyalty, pleading that his life was for death and not love. ; Soon as the memory of past ages I came over the samurai, the lost glory of the Son of Heaven flashed upon them. They saw the Mikado himself leading his army to victory. They 90 THE VOICE FROM WITHIN heard their ancestors beating their shields with their swords, as they sang the war-song of Otomo, the terrible joy of dying by the Mikado's side. They wept when they thought of the shadow that had come over the throne. They made pilgrimages to the imperial mau- soleums, which had long been left to de- cay, and washed their moss-covered steps with tears. Who were the Toku- gawas who dared to stand between them | and their legitimate sovereign? Oh, to die— to die for the Mikado I The historic spirit now stood sword//, in hand, and the sword was one of no mean steel. The samurai, like his weapon, was cold, but never forgot the fire in which he was forged. His im- petuosity was always tempered by his code of honor. In the feudal days Zen had taught him self-restraint and 91 ,1; THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN made courteousness the mark of brav- ery. Confucianism had in the Toku- gawa period intensified that sense of duty which made him disregard all ob- stacles. He did not court useless danger, for his courage was never questioned. He marched to certain death not with the blind fury of fanaticism but with a set resolution of doing whatever was demanded of him. The historical spirit in penetrating his soul made him a new being. All the devotion which had for- merly been consecrated to the service of his immediate liege was now laid at the feet of the Mikado. Soon the historical spirit began to permeate the ranks of the daimios. It first entered the souls of those Tozama daimios who, hke the lords of Satsuma and Choshiu, felt a hereditary animosity 92 THE VOICE FROM WITHIN to the shogunate. Later on it began to influence even the princes of the Toku- gawa family, especially the princes of Mito and the lords of Echizen. The scholars of these daimiates, with their Shinto and Oyomian tendencies, were the apostles of the Restoration. It is to be noted that Keiki, last of the sho- guns, who voluntarily gave up the reins of government to the Mikado, was a prince of Mito. The hour had come when dreams were to be translated into action, and the sword was to leave the quiet of the scabbard and leap forth with the fury of lightning. Strange whispers traveled from the cities to the villages. The lotus trem- bled above the turbid waters, the stars began to pale before the dawn, and that 93 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN mighty hush which bespeaks the com- ing storm fell on the nation. Oyomei was abroad and the dragon was calling forth the hurricane. It was at this moment that the West appeared on our horizon. 94 V THE WHITE DISASTER TO MOST Eastern nations the advent of the West has been by no means an unmixed blessing. Thinking to welcome the benefits of increased com- merce, they have become the victims of foreign imperialism; beHeving in the philanthropic aims of Christian mission- aries, they have bowed before the mes- sengers of military aggression. For them the earth is no longer filled with that peace which pillowed their content- ment. If the guilty conscience of some European nations has conjured up the specter of a Yellow Peril, may not the suffering soul of Asia wail over the realities of the White Disaster. 96 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN To the mind of the average West- erner it may seem but natural to regard with feelings of unmingled triumph that world of to-day in which or- ganization has made of society a huge machine ministering to its own neces- sities. It is the rapid development of mechanical invention which has created the present era of locomotion and specu- lation, a development which is working itself out into various expressions of commerciahsm and industrialism, ac- companied by a tendency toward the universal occidentalization of etiquette f and language. This movement, result- [ ing in a rapid expansion of wealth and ' prestige, originated in a profound reali- zation of the glory of manhood, of com- radeship, and of mutual trust. The restlessness that constantly moves its home from the steamer to the hotel, 96 THE WHITE DISASTER from the railway station to the bathing resort, has brought about the possibiHty of a cosmopolitan culture. The nine- teenth century has witnessed a wonder- ful spread in the blessings of scientific sanitation and surgery. Knowledge as well as finance has become organized, and large communities are made capa- ble of collective action and the develop- ment of a single personal consciousness. To the inhabitant of the West all this may well be food for satisfaction; to him it may seem inconceivable that the bland irony of China the machine f^^i appears as a toy, not an ideal. The ven- erable East still distinguishes ^^^ween,^ ^ means and ends. The West is for pro-i . . gress, but progress toward what? When material efficiency is complete, what end, asks Asia, will have been ac- ' 97 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN complished? When the passion of fra- ternity has cuhninated in universal co- operation, what purpose is it to serve? If mere self-interest, where do we find the boasted advance? The picture of Western glory unfor- tunately has a reverse. Size alone does not constitute true greatness, and the enjoyment of luxury does not always result in refinement. The individuals who go to the making up of the great machine of so-called modern civiliza- tion become the slaves of mechanical habit and are ruthlessly dominated by the monster they have created. In spite of the vaunted freedom of the West, true individuality is destroyed in the c \ competition for wealth, and happiness ^ • / and contentment are sacrificed to an in- I cessant craving for more. The West takes pride in its emancipation from 98 THE WHITE DISASTER medieval superstition, but what of that idolatrous worship of wealth that has taken its place? What sufferings and discontent lie hidden behind the gor-, geous mask of the present? The voice of socialism is a wail over the agonies of Western economics,— the tragedy of. Capital and Labor. But with a hunger unsatisfied by its myriad victims in its own broad lands, the West also seeks to prey upon the East. The advance of Europe in Asia means not merely the imposition of so- cial ideals which the East holds to be crude if not barbarous, but also the sub- version of all existing law and author- ity. The Western ships which brought their civilization also brought con^uests^ jgrjjtefitojates, ex-territorial jurisdiction, lucres of influence, and what not of debasement, till the name of the Oriental 99 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN has become a synonym for the degen- erate, and the word " native " an epithet for slaves. In Japan the race of those fiery pa- triots who fifty years ago shouted, "Away with the Western barbarians 1" with all the lusty enthusiasm of the Chinese Boxers, is entirely gone. The tremendous change which has since come over our political life, and the ma- terial advantages we have gained by foreign contact, have so completely revolutionized national sentiment in re- gard to the West that it has become al- most impossible for us to conceive what it was that so aroused the antagonism of our grandfathers. On the contrary, we have become so eager to identify our- selves with European civilization in- stead of Asiatic that our continental neighbors regard us as renegades— nay, 100 THE WHITE DISASTER even as an embodiment of the White Disaster itself. But our mental stand- point of a few generations back was that of the conservative Chinese patriot of to-day, and we saw in Western ad- vance but the probable encompassing of our ruin. To the down-trodden Ori- ental the glory of Europe is but the humiliation of Asia. If we place ourselves in the position of a Chinese patriot of to-day we shall be able to understand how the march of contemporary events appeared to our grandfathers. Their fears were not al- together without reason, for to the wounded imagination of Orientals his- tory told of the gradual advance of the White Disaster which was descend- ing on Asia. The Italian Renaissance marks the time when, freed from its chains, the roving spirit of Western en- 101 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN terprise first began to seize upon any corner of the globe where was aught to be gained. When Marco Polo returned from the Chinese court, he bore tidings of the untold treasures of the extreme Orient. America was merely an acciden- tal discovery on the part of Spain in her attempt to reach the coveted wealth of India. We recalled those days of Por- tuguese cruelty and Dutch treachery, when the cow's hide gained a colony and the concession for a factory resulted in the establishment of an empire. The beginning of the seventeenth century shows the rise of the East India companies of the French, Dutch, Dan- ish, and English, the gratification of whose political ambitions, however, re- mained as yet unsatisfied owing to the struggles of mutual rivalry, the solidity of the Mussulman power of Delhi, and 102 THE WHITE DISASTER their awe of that great Turkish empire which still bravely bore the brunt of Western advance and often hurled it back to the walls of Vienna. But the brightness of the Crescent was fast waning before the combined persistence of the West, and soon the disastrous treaty of Kutchuk-Kainarji inaugu- rated the imposition of Russian inter- ference in the affairs of the Porte. In 1803 the last of the Grand Moguls be- came a British pensioner. In 1839, Abdul Med j id ascended the throne of Osmanli under the "protection" ofj European powers. With the increase in credit and cap- ital during the latter half of the eight- eenth century, the inventive energy of European industrialism is set in motion. Coal takes the place of wood in smelt- ing, and the flying shuttle, the spinning- THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN jenny, the mule, the power-loom, and the steam-engine all spring up in for- /Jomidable array. Commercialism makes the very life of the West depend upon 'her finding markets for her goods. Her Q role is now to sell, and that of the East -^ to buy. War is declared from her factories, and the protests of her more humane statesmen are drowned in the noise of thundering mills. What chance has individualized Eastern trade against the sweeping batteries of or- ganized commerce? Cheapness and competition, like the mitrailleuse, under whose cover they advance, now sweep away the crafts. The economic life of the Orient, founded on land and la- bor and deprived of a protective tariff through high-handed diplomatic action, succumbs to the army of the machine and capital. 104 THE WHITE DISASTER What has become of India? It is to- day a country where the names of Asoka and Vikramaditya are even forgotten. It is a country of rajas whose breasts are starry with dishonor, and of national congresses that dare not protest. Bur- ma was in existence but yesterday: in the rubies of Thebaw cries the inno- cent blood of Mandalay. The Kohi- noor is even as a teardrop of Golconda. What need to mention the painful comedies enacted in Persia and Siam or to call attention to the "protectorate" established by France over Tonkin? Protectorate I Against whom? In 1842 a Christian nation forces opium on China at the mouth of the can- non and extorts Hongkong. In 1860, on a slight pretext, the joint armies of France and England invade Peking and sack the Summer Palace, whose treasures 106 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN are now the pride of European mu- seums, while the Russians always main- tain a steady encroachment upon the hereditary domains of the Celestial Em- pire along the borders of the Amur and Hi. The kindly intervention of the Triple Coalition after the Japanese war was but a farce, for thereby Russia gained Port Arthur, Germany Kiau- chau, and France a tighter grasp on Yunnan. It is true that the defilement of their sacred shrines goaded the Box- ers to a passionate outburst of fury ; but what could their old-fashioned arms avail against the combined armies of the aUied powers? Their ill-judged efforts only resulted in the heaping of indignities upon China and the pay- ment by her of exorbitant indemnities. In spite of repeated promises of evacua- tion, Russia has endeavored to establish 106 THE WHITE DISASTER herself permanently in Manchuria, and the persecuted inhabitants of that prov- ince behold the graveyards of their be- loved forefathers turned into railway stations, while Cossack horses find sta- bling in the sacred Temple of Heaven. If Asia was old-fashioned, was Europe J just? If China tried to lift her head,' if the worm turned in its agony, did not Europe at once raise the cry of the Yel- low Peril? Verily, the glory of the West is the humiliation of Asia. To Japan the armed embassy of the United States of America in 1853 seemed a dread image of that White Disaster whose advent had proved so fatal to other Eastern countries. Eleven years before that event the Opium War in China had exposed the unscrupulous nature of Western ag- gression. The Dutch, who kept us in- 107 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN formed of the European encroachment on Asia, did not hesitate to enhance the value of their friendship by painting the deeds of other Western nations in the darkest colors. In fact, unfortu- nately, we had already had some experi- ence of foreign rapacity in the Russian advance from the north. It is a curious coincidence that the first European nation — and let us hope it may be the last — whom we have met in battle array is the power whose acts first warned us of the possibility of for- eign complications. Russia, sweeping down from Siberia and Kamchatka, long ago laid her hands upon our territory of Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands. In the end of the eighteenth century the Russians committed ravages in Yezo itself, and in 1806 the Tokugawas had to place a military governor in Hako- 108 THE WHITE DISASTER date to guard against their further dep- redations. Alarming stories of North- ern encroachments were poured into our excited ears, and many daimios offered of themselves to chase back the intrud- ers. In 1830 Nariaki of Mito, a pow- erful prince of the Tokugawa family, proposed to settle in Yezo with all his retainers and the entire population of his daimiate. He melted all the bronze bells of the temples in his territory, cast- ing a number of immense cannon, and drilled his samurai in preparation for an emergency. His zeal was, however, misconstrued by the Tokugawa govern- ment and he was obliged to abdicate in favor of his son and remain in retire- ment. Russophobes were imprisoned for spreading false alarms, and many died in confinement. It is interesting to find among some of their memoirs 109 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN prophecies of Russian aggrandizement in Asia which have been but too truly fulfilled. The appearance of American war- ships in the bay of Yedo was a mighty shock. Hitherto the alarms of foreign attack had meant but little to the coun- try at large, for it was a long cry to Hakodate or Nagasaki ; but now within a day's march of the city of Yedo lay the black hulks of a formidable fleet whose admiral refused to retire until a treaty was signed. Recollection of the Tartar armada flashed through the minds of our grandfathers. Was the samurai to be intimidated in his own waters? Was not the divine land al- ways prepared to repel an invasion? What right had a foreign nation to im- pose a commerce which we did not want, a friendship which we did not ask? To 110 THE WHITE DISASTER arms I Jhoi! Jhoi! Away with the barbarians! The alarm-bells clanged throughout the country. Foam-cov- ered riders rushed through every castle gate, spreading the momentous news. Spears were torn from their racks and ancient armor was eagerly dragged from dust-covered caskets. Night and day could be heard the clanging of steel on anvils forging the accoutrements of war. The old prince of Mito was sum- moned from his hermitage to take com- mand, and his cannon lined the principal points of defense. Buddhists wore away » their rosaries in invoking Kartikiya, the war-god, and Shinto priests fasted while ^ they called on the sea and the tempest[ to destroy the invader. The historic spirit that had been smoldering in our national conscious- ness only waited for this moment to 111 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN burst forth in a fiery expression of unity. Custom and formalism were alike forgotten in this hour of common danger, and for the first time in two hundred years the daimios were asked by the Tokugawa government to delib- erate over a matter of state. For the first time in seven centuries the Shogun sent a special envoy to the Mikado to consult about the policy of the empire, and for the first time in the history of our nation, the high and the low alike were invited to offer suggestions as to what steps should be taken for the pro- tection of the ancestral land. We be- came one, and the Night of Asia fled forever before the rays of the Rising Sun. 112 VI THE CABINET AND THE BOUDOIR HAD it not been for the timely ar- rival of the American Embassy and the determined attitude which it took in regard to Japan's relations with the outside world, we might have en- tered upon an era of internal discord culminating in a civil war far worse than anything that preceded the Resto- ration of 1868. The immediate effect of the arrival of the American Embassy was to reconsolidate the fast-waning power of the Tokugawa government. Putting in abeyance all minor matters of dispute, the entire nation looked to ' 113 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN the Shogun, as the representative of all existing authority, to lead the forces of Japan against what was regarded as a Western invasion. Thus the Toku- gawa government was given a new lease of life and its final overthrow postponed for fifteen years, during which time ultra-reformists were kept from running riot and the nation was given a chance to prepare itself for the momentous change which was to come. Had the Tokugawas better under- stood their own position, they might under this new condition of affairs, have retained their power for an in- definite period of time; but, unfortu- nately for them, there developed out of the rivalry between the cabinet and the boudoir an element of discord which brought about the ultimate downfall of the entire Tokugawa system. 114 CABINET AND BOUDOIR Like all Eastern monarchies, the To- kugawa shogunate led a twofold exist- ence, that of the outer ministry and that of the inner household. Of these two modes of expression, the former exhib- its the sovereign as one who represents the united political wisdom of the coun- try handed down through a long suc- cession of experiences, the latter as an autocrat whose will is law. The ideal ruler, who stopped in the midst of a ban- quet to listen to the grievances of his people and preferred the discourse of sour-visaged councilors to the sweet music of the court beauties, confined himself exclusively to the first role. But even in Confucian lands human nature is weak. The fortunes of a dynasty have often fluctuated with the adher- ence of its representative to one or the other of these policies ; and it is a signifi- 116 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN cant fact that in Chinese history we find the preponderance of the household in- fluence always resulting in rebellion, whereas that of the cabinet is over- thrown only by the aggression of some foreign power. In more recent days a sort of compromise has generally been effected between these influences, virtu- ally creating a twofold expression of the sovereign will. This arrangement has occasioned many awkward compli- cations, especially where diplomatic re- lations with foreign nations have been concerned: the household may deny what the cabinet has afiirmed, and vice versa. The power of the Chinese imperial household, to whose deliberations, ac- cording to Celestial customs, no male was admitted, was often wielded by the Empress or some lady politician who 116 CABINET AND BOUDOIR from her boudoir pulled the reins of the government to the dismay of cabinet ministers. Some of these women were possessed of remarkable genius and suc- ceeded in assuming entire control of the state. Empress Lo of the Hang and Empress Wu of the Tang dynasty are well-known examples of the usurpation of full sovereignty by a woman. The present Empress Dowager of China affords a remarkable instance of the as- cendancy which the household may possess over the Tsung-li-yamen, or cab- inet. Under the Tokugawa shogunate there was constant friction between the cabinet and the boudoir. The minis- ters, chosen from among the ablest rep- resentatives of those daimiates which had been created by the Tokugawas, strove to maintain the hereditary policy 117 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN of lyeyasu, which had in their eyes al- most the authority of a national consti- tution. They were for the most part astute statesmen who thoroughly un- derstood the spirit of the nation, and never, in spite of their absolutism, out- raged the feelings of the public. It was owing to their influence that the Sho- gun, even if personally of weak charac- ter, generally commanded the respect of his subjects. When, however, the Shogun fell under the influence of the boudoir, he became the hated despot who, regardless of public opinion, passed measures inimical to the national welfare. Unfortunately, in these cases the cabinet made but slight protest, for the code of the samurai forbade re- sistance to the will of the overlord. The ladies of Yedo Castle had been active participators in the Tokugawa 118 CABINET AND BOUDOIR rule even in the time of lyeyasu, who found among them many trusted friends and able councilors. It formed a part of his system to send them on se- cret and delicate missions, and they had come to be a well-recognized power in the government of his successors. In the case of a shogun at all inclined to be autocratic, the ladies surrounding his private life exerted an immense influ- ence. Either in the person of his mother, his wife, his nurse, or his favor- ite, they so constantly influenced his feelings and sought to mold his ac- tions that he needed to be a man of very strong character to remain untram- meled by these silken bonds. They possessed a hereditary policy of their own, which, based on woman's instinct of conservatism and hatred of compro- mise, was the dread of all cabinet minis- 119 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN ters who attempted reforms. Their in- terference was not like the temporary meddling of a Madame Pompadour or a Duchesse de Montespan, but that of a whole line of female cardinals. It was owing to the antagonism of the boudoir that the Tokugawa statesman Rakuwo failed to accomplish his proposed reor- ganization of local government. It was through their influence that Mid- zuno-Echizen was prevented from en- forcing his sumptuary laws, which aimed at the correction of many existent abuses. During the closing years of the Tokugawa government many wise mea- sures proposed by the cabinet met with defeat owing to the ascendancy in power of the boudoir. At the time of the first American Em- bassy, the reigning Shogun, twelfth of his line, was a young and weak prince 120 CABINET AND BOUDOIR who had, however, in the person of Abe- Isenokami, an able prime minister who showed a remarkable grasp of the situa- tion and inaugurated that enlightened policy to which Japan owes her present position. The real significance of his acts has been quite obscured beneath a mass of conflicting criticism and the ignominy which attaches to the states- men of a fallen dynasty. Even his ne- gotiation of a treaty of amity with Commodore Perry in the face of a dis- senting majority has been minimized by his detractors, yet it was this treaty which first brought us in touch with the rest of the world. His moderation was not cowardice; if he had allowed himself to be carried away by the belligerent spirit which animated the daimios, Japan might have made a pitiful exhi- bition of herself. A refusal to treat 121 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN with the Embassy would probably have resulted in a bombardment, and in spite of the fiery bravery of the samurai, what would their old-fashioned cannon and fortifications have availed against the well-equipped Americans? It is due to the full recognition by Abe- Isenokami of our unpreparedness for war that Japan was saved from any such disaster. Our sincere thanks are also due to the American admiral, who showed infinite patience and fairness in his negotiations. Oriental nations never forget a kindness, and international kindnesses are unfortunately extremely rare. The name of Commodore Perry has become so dear to us that, on the fiftieth anniversary of his arrival, the people erected a monument at the spot where he landed. It is not to be supposed that Abe- 122 CABINET AND BOUDOIR Isenokami realized the full importance of foreign intercourse, or even welcomed it. Like other men of his time, he merely considered it as a necessary evil. His knowledge of the West was but scanty, and he left the burden of treating with the Americans to his minister of for- eign aiFairs, Hotta-Bitchiunokami, who later succeeded to the premiership after the death of Abe. He recognized nev- ertheless how necessary it was for Ja- pan to acquire Western knowledge, so that she might be able to defend herself against foreign invasion. This he was at length able to impress upon the To- kugawa authorities, and the warlike daimios were prevailed upon to keep quiet during his lifetime. He opened, under government patronage, a school in which various branches of foreign science were for the first time openly 123 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN taught: the present Imperial Univer- sity of Tokio is a development from this school. Hitherto the pursuit of foreign knowledge except that of medi- cine had been interdicted, and students had been obliged to do their work in secret and under great difficulties. Now, however, any one who proved him- self worthy was promoted and en- couraged in his work, while our soldiers were trained in the Dutch and French systems of drill. Both war-ships and merchant vessels were ordered from Holland, and young samurai were sent to study their construction and manage- ment; this was the beginning of the present Japanese navy. The prohibi- tion against building ships beyond a certain size was revoked, and many daimios, like those of Mito and Sat- suma, vied in constructing them. 124 CABINET AND BOUDOIR The main idea of Abe-Isenokami seemed to have been to consolidate the Tokugawa rule on a new basis. He ap- pears to have appreciated the fact that a great change had come over the nation, and that the fast-decaying prestige of the Tokugawa government could be saved from complete destruction only by the assimilation of new energy. It was his intention to make the shogunate the center of all the forces that moved the empire. It was with this idea that he initiated the custom of approaching the Mikado and the assembly of daimios on all questions of state: a great mis- take in the eyes of Tokugawa histori- ans. He strengthened the allegiance of the lord of Satsuma, most powerful of the daimios, by bringing about the marriage of his daughter to the Sho- gun. He kept the old prince of Mito 125 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN in good humor by making active prepa- rations for war. He corrected many- existing abuses, instituted reforms in administration, appointed able men even from the lower ranks of the samu- rai to responsible positions, and did all he could for the revival of Tokugawa prestige. Next to the foreign question the most vital problem of the day was as to who should succeed to the shogunate on the death of the present incumbent, a child- less and confirmed invalid. Indeed, this latter question proved itself perhaps the more important of the two, for the ultimate downfall of the Tokugawas resulted from the manner in which it was finally settled. Among the Toku- gawa princes Keiki, the fourth son of the old prince of Mito, seemed the most suitable candidate for the succession. 126 CABINET AND BOUDOIR He was adored by the daimios and samurai, not only on account of his father, but for his own fine personality and ability. His devotion to the Mi- kado was well known, and it was said that the court of Kioto would be pleased to have him as shogun. Abe saw in Keiki's succession a great possi- bility for solidifying the Tokugawa rule, as an able shogun backed by the daimios and the Kioto court, might accomplish almost anything. There was but one difficulty in the way of his appointment, and that was that the present Shogun and the ladies of his court disliked him. As a samurai and vassal, Abe's preeminent duty was to obey the wishes of his master, while as a minister he recognized the power of the ladies of Yedo Castle. He knew that to the conservative policy of the bou- 127 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN doir his various innovations were dis- tasteful in the extreme, and that it feared the appointment of a strong- minded shogun, such as Keiki promised to be, who might refuse to become a mere puppet in its hands. On this ac- count Abe dared not show his hand, for he was aware of the great power which the boudoir could bring to bear upon the cabinet to overthrow all its efforts toward a reorganization of the Toku- gawa rule. His attitude toward the problem of succession was so cautious as to appear almost indecisive. Had he been spared a few years longer, he might have accomplished his object; but in 1857 he succumbed to a short illness and died at the age of thirty-nine. Thus perished the last great statesman who might have retrieved the sinking fortimes of the Tokugawas. 128 CABINET AND BOUDOIR Hotta-Bitchiunokami, who succeeded Abe as prime minister, although he did not possess the same abihty, tried to fol- low out the policy of his predecessor. He did not command the respect of the Kioto court and unwittingly alienated the affections of the daimios. He was almost without supporters by the time he left Yedo, in the spring of 1858, to obtain the imperial ratification to the new treaty whose terms had been drawn up by him and the American consul, Townsend Harris. Times were indeed changed when a Tokugawa prime min- ister was obliged to go in person to Kioto to answer the queries of those court nobles who had formerly trem- bled in his presence. But the Kioto court had already tasted power and would fain drink to the full. To the members of the imperial court, so long » 129 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN isolated from participation in affairs of state, the question of our national poli- tics was doubly unintelligible, while their conservatism recoiled from the very mention of foreign intercourse. It was a difficult task for Hotta, who sin- cerely believed in the necessity of for- eign intercourse and trade, to explain these things to a court which heard of them for the first time, and consequently his mission ended in failure. They asked many perplexing questions and could not understand why the citizens of a foreign nation should not obey the laws of the country in which they came to live. The unpopularity of Hotta afforded an opportunity for the boudoir to ob- tain control of the government, and dur- ing his sojourn in Kioto the ladies of Yedo Castle replaced him by a pre- 130 CABINET AND BOUDOIR mier who had agreed to side with them in the choice- of a future shogun. The new minister, lyi-Kamon, lord of Hi- kone, was the last exponent of Toku- gawa autocracy: he it was who accom- plished the terrible coup d'etat of 1859. Though a choice of the boudoir, and representative of its policy, Hikone was possessed of no servile spirit. He was a loyal daimio of the old type, ready to carry out the wishes of his liege through fire or water. Descended from the greatest general among the forces of lyeyasu, his traditional loy- alty rebelled at the encroachments of the Kioto court and the daimios upon the time-honored prestige of the Toku- gawas. To him the question of suc- cession to the shogunate was purely a family matter for the Tokugawas to settle, and one in which no one else had 181 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN any right to interfere. To him, the signing of treaties with foreign nations was well within the prerogative in- trusted to the Shogun from ancient days, and it was a mistake to have ever consulted the court nobles or the dai- mios about it. He recognized the fact that the country was undergoing a crisis, but believed that with firmness the authority of the Tokugawas could again be made thoroughly autocratic. It was with this determination that, in the summer of 1858, he answered the sum- mons of the dying Shogun, who had been urged to send for him by the ladies of Yedo Castle. The first act of Hikone after accept- ing the premiership was to declare the young prince lyemochi, of the house of Kishiu, who had been the choice of the dying Shogun, ruler instead of Keiki 132 CABINET AND BOUDOIR of Mito, the candidate of the daimios. lyemochi, who was but thirteen at the time of his appointment, ruled as the thirteenth Shogun of the Tokugawas until the year 1866, when he died and was succeeded by Keiki. Hikone's sec- ond act was publicly to disgrace those daimios who had been recognized lead- ers of the opposition in regard to the question of succession. The old prince of Mito and the lord of Echizen were forced to resign their offices, and mem- bers of the Abe party, from Hotta downward, were degraded in rank. His third act was to sign commercial treaties with various Western nations, in utter disregard of the wishes of the Mikado, to whom a report of his actions was sent by the common post. All these measures, and especially the last, were in the nature of bravado 133 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN against national sentiment. The court highly resented the audacity of the new Tokugawa minister, and Kioto be- came the center where emissaries of the disaffected daimios met to conspire and plan countermoves. The prince of Mito received imperial instructions to call an assemblage of the daimios to reform the Tokugawa cabinet. Hi- kone, who watched all these proceed- ings through his spies, was not slow to move. In the spring of 1859 nearly forty of the more prominent agita- tors were arrested and either beheaded or imprisoned for high treason. All were famous men of the time, among whom were included scholars, poets, and artists. One court lady, also im- plicated, was exiled. Many of the kuges were compelled to shave their heads and retire from the world. The 134 CABINET AND BOUDOIR most deplorable result of this coup d'etat was the loss to Japan of a great num- ber of men of remarkable genius. Among those beheaded were Yoshida- Shoyin of Choshiu, precursor and in- spirer of Kido and Marquis Ito, and Hashimoto-Sanai of Echizen, a states- man of a Mazzini-like intellect, for whose death alone the Tokugawa gov- ernment was said to have deserved its downfall. Our Garibaldi, the great Saigo of Satsuma, had a hairbreadth es- cape from the hands of Hikone's min- ions. This sudden display of despotism quelled the national spirit for a time, but the silence which followed was omi- nous. Assassination always lurks in the shadow of an absolute tyranny. In the late spring of 1860 it was snowing heavily and the light flakes mingled 135 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN with the falling cherry-blossoms. The road from the palace of the lord of Hikone to the Sakurada gate of Yedo Castle was completely deserted as lyi- Kamon and his misuspecting retinue passed on their way to pay the usual morning homage to the Shogun. Sud- denly they were attacked by seventeen ronins, mostly of the Mito clan, and Hikone was killed almost before his body-guard had time to draw their swords. The assassins fell upon their own weapons, leaving a few of their comrades to explain to the nearest au- thorities that their deed had been a stroke for national liberty and not an act of private vengeance. Deplorable as this tragedy was, it had a helpful effect on the country, and showed that reawakened Japan was determined to resist to the utmost any 136 CABINET AND BOUDOIR attempts at the reenforcement of des- potism. Perhaps a justification of such acts lies in the fact that assas- sination is the only weapon of a dis- armed patriotism. No constitutional protest would have availed against the iron sway of Tokugawa autoc- racy: yet its icy structure melted away like the snows of Sakurada be- neath the warm blood of the devoted ronins. A profound feeling of uneasiness possessed the nation, and the popular imagination was excited in various ways by those who had at heart the com- plete restoration of authority to the Mi- kado. Placards denouncing the usur- pation of the Shogun were posted in public places by invisible hands. Mys- tic tablets foretelling the doom of the Tokugawas were reported to have been 137 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN wafted from the heavens to various parts of the empire. Masked bands waylaid the official mail and intercepted the transport of government revenue, the money being given to the poor. A great number of samurai forsook their liege lords and assembled in Kioto to offer their swords for the service of the Mikado. The acts of these ronins were characterized more by symbolic demonstration than by open, violence against the shogunate. To cite one in- stance of their methods: a band of ro- nins entered the mausoleum of the Ashikagas and decapitated the statues of the thirteen shoguns of that dynasty, displaying their heads near the Shi jo bridge. This childish act had a strange influence over the Japanese mind, with its Oriental love of symbolism, and was even more potent than the Sakurada 138 CABINET AND BOUDOIR affair in arousing the feelings of the people. It spared us the horror of an assassination, yet had all the ghastly elo- quence of one. After the death of Hikone the Toku- gawa caBinet no longer possessed a minister able to cope with the situation, and its attempts at popular concilia- tion were interpreted as confessions of weakness. Ando-Tsushimanokami, who succeeded Hikone as senior mem- ber of the cabinet, prevailed upon the Kioto court to bestow the hand of the Princess Kazunomiya, sister of the Mikado, on the Shogun. This political marriage was celebrated in 1861 with great pomp, but did not lessen the existing tension. Public sentiment against the Tokugawas had reached such a point that fictitious stories about the maltreatment of the royal bride were readily believed. The prime minister 139 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN was even accused of holding the prin- cess as a hostage for the acquiescence of the court in the despotic measures of his predecessor. The following year he was attacked by ronins while on his way to the palace of the Shogun, but the would-be assassins were unsuccessful in their attempt on his life. Ando, who was a fine swordsman, cut down two of his assailants while his body-guard des- patched the rest. These repeated at- tacks on the Tokugawa ministers were significant of the tendency of events, and forty of the more powerful dai- mios received an imperial summons to protect Kioto. The throne once more became the real seat of authority, and Yedo Castle but the home of its chief vassal. The boudoir, in attempting to crush the cabinet, had dealt a death- blow to the entire Tokugawa govern- ment. 140 VII THE TRANSITION THE eight years that intervene be- tween the death of Hikone in 1860 and the Restoration of 1868, when his Majesty the present Emperor of Japan assumed the reins of govern- ment, are memorable for the wealth of energy which was displayed by the na- tion in adopting a rapid series of po- litical changes. The dragon-spirit of change was constantly urging the na- tion after new ideals. Even the busy years that followed the Restoration could not equal in activity this short period, into which were compressed the germs of all later movements. *We are 141 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN reminded of those great transition periods of European history when forms become formless in order to cre- ate new forms. Like the initiators of the Italian Renaissance, we had to solve the double problem of restoring the old while absorbing the new. Like the much-abused French Revolution, so rich in idealization, our Restoration is characterized by an exuberant desire for self-sacrifice on the part of its en- thusiasts. It was due to this feeling of patriotic ardor that the samurai vol- untarily gave up his swords, the daimio his fiefs, and the Shogun his hereditary authority. The turmoil of the Restoration was not confined to Kioto and Yedo, but found expression in all parts of the empire. Everywhere famihes were di- vided by their varying allegiance to the 142 THE TRANSITION Mikado or to the Shogun, the son op- posing the father, the younger brother the elder. Kioto became the headquar- ters of intrigue and the breeding-place of extreme views. The Restoration had really begun when the daimios were summoned to protect the imperial per- son, and now the court, strengthened by their presence at Kioto, began to dictate terms to the Shogun. There was no question about the restitution of supreme authority to the Mikado, for this was a consummation universally de- sired and already half accomplished; but as regart^s the method of adminis- tering the government there were many opinions. Two great parties, the Fed- eralists and the Imperialists, each rep- resentative of a different political sys- tem, gathered about the throne. These alternately gained the upper hand until 143 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN both became united in a third party, the Unionists, which laid the foundations of our present administrative system. The ascendancy of these different parties each in its turn marks the suc- cessive steps by which the poHtical Hfe of the nation was returning to its an- cient form. We had now reached a point where the possibihty of assuming an international position opened before us a mighty vista. The dragon was curving backward for his final spring. It was a curious example of social em- bryology that Japan should have as- sumed atavistic forms before its rebirth. Of the two original parties, the Fed- eralists, under the leadership of the lord of Satsuma, represented the vari- ous daimios. Their position prevented them from welcoming any abrupt change in the government, and they 144 THE TRANSITION hoped for some sort of federation whereby they might control the sho- gunate. Their ideal government was that of the end of the sixteenth century, when, before the consolidation of the Tokugawa shogunate, the newly uni- fied empire was governed by a council made up of five of the most powerful daimios; in fact, they wished for a re- vival of the feudal age. Their for- eign policy made a virtue of necessity, and, like the shogunate, accepted the inevitable in commercial relationships with the West. The Imperialists sought their ideal further back in our history than the Federalists, and desired the restitution of imperial bureaucracy as it had ex- isted before the feudal period. It was not only radical, but revolutionary in its propositions, inasmuch as it aimed ^0 145 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN at the abolition of the shogunate and even of the daimiates. Those who com- posed the Imperial party were the kuges, hereditarily connected with the throne, the ronins, and the Shintoists, the ardor of the last augmented by reli- gious zeal for the descendant of the Sun Goddess. The lord of Choshiu, whose family had long secretly nursed a feud with the Tokugawas, also joined the rank of the Imperialists. All of these were fired with a burning enthusiasm for the cause of the Mikado. They had no foreign policy except that of antago- nism. This was due not so much to their hatred of the West as to their ex- asperation with the shogunate for signing treaties with the foreigner re- gardless of the wishes of the Mikado. The Unionists, who later appeared on the scene, were men of advanced 146 THE TRANSITION thought who considered that the unity of Japan should be accomplished at any cost, and that the crisis through which we were passing involved inter- national as well as national problems. All had received scholastic training, for the most part in the Oyomei School; they had also acquired a certain amount of Western knowledge, the assimilation of which the liberal policy of Abe- Isenokami had rendered possible. They were to be found even among the Toku- gawa samurai, the late Count Katsu- Awa being a noteworthy example. The main strength of this party, however, lay in the young samurai of Satsuma, Choshiu, and Tosa, whose patriotism furnished the backbone of New Japan, and the survivors of whom now com- mand deep respect as the "Elder Statesmen." 147 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN The Unionists, second to none in their adoration of the Mikado, worked for the full restoration of his sover- eignty; but their theory of administra- tion, in returning to the democratic ideas of ancient China, stretched still further back into antiquity even than those of the others. In the ideahzed Confucian state all men were equal and the head of the government ruled, not on account of his descent, but by virtue of his personal rectitude. Wisdom was sought in a council of elders, and popu- lar opinion was consulted in various ways. All should take up arms against an invasion; but as soon as war ceased the sword should be beaten again into the plowshare and the works of peace resumed. European and American re- publics, as at first understood by our scholars, reminded them curiously of 148 THE TRANSITION the Golden Age of the Celestial Land. In one of the letters of Sakuma-Sho- zan, a noted Unionist leader, he says,\ " It is wonderful that among the bar- 1 barians should be preserved the laws of the ancient sages!" Untutored as yet in the darker side of Western poli- tics, they fell into ecstasies over those achievements of modern nations which seemed to them an actualization of their ideals. In George Washington they\ saw the Emperor Yaou of China re- ] linquishing his throne to the ablest citi- / y zen of the realm. Wonder is the mother of knowledge. Treatises on international law were read with the same respect which was rendered to the codes of the Chow d5masty. Montes- quieu, with his triune theory of gov- ernment, was hailed as the Book of Mencius. Far from despising the 149 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN West, the Unionists laid themselves at its feet. It was not the novelty but the similarity of what they found that at- tracted them. Sakuma-Shozan first proposed to the authorities the employ- ment of European instructors in all branches of study. He was also the first Japanese who adopted European costume. We may mention, in passing, that this idiosyncrasy of dress was actuated by a love of symbolism. It was the ex- pression of a desire on the part of the progressionist to cast off the shackles of the decadent East and identify himself with the advance of Western civilization. Our kimono meant lei- sure, while the European dress meant activity and became the uniform of the army of progress, like the chapeau rouge in revolutionary France. Now- 150 THE TRANSITION adays a reaction has set in, and native costume is more generally worn by the progressives. Few of our ladies affect European costume except at court. Sakuma-Shozan paid dearly for his pro-foreign leanings: in 1866 he was assassinated at Kioto by the ronins of the imperial party. Yet despite con- servative antagonism, Western know- ledge became more and more sought after as time advanced, until it has now become an inherent part of our na- tional culture. It must always be re- membered, however, that the original movement toward the acquirement of foreign knowledge was fostered by the historic spirit. If there had been no ;!^-^^, common point of contact, an Oriental' / - race like ours would never have adopted Occidental ideas with the enthusiasm that we did. 161 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN Of the three parties above mentioned, the Federals were at first in the ascen- dant. In 1862 two imperial embassies, escorted by the lords of Satsuma and Tosa, left Kioto for Yedo, carry- ing orders to the Shogun to give the higher positions under his adminis- tration to certain powerful daimios, and furthermore commanding him to pay personal homage to the throne, a ceremony neglected since the days of the fourth Shogun. The Tokugawas had now no power to refuse, and as the result of these commands Prince Keiki was made chief adviser of the Shogun, the lord of Nabeshima his tutor, the lord of Echizen prime minister of the cabinet, and the lord of Awa di- rector of military affairs. The first ac- tion of the new cabinet was to abol- ish the custom by which the daimios 152 THE TRANSITION were obliged to leave hostages at Yedo and they themselves periodically to pay homage to the Shogun, both of which usages formed so impor- tant a part of the Tokugawa system. Another of their reforms was the re- placement of the Tokugawa garrison at Kioto by one under the command of a Federal daimio. Their choice for this position fell on the lord of Aidzu, who later stood forth as the champion of the Federal policy after most of the other daimios had joined the Union- ists. Beyond carrying through these re- forms, the Federal party accomplished but little. The program of instituting radical changes while preserving the Tokugawa rule soon placed the Federal- ists in a dilemma, while petty jealousies and dissensions began to spring up in 153 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN their ranks. The lord of Satsuma, who alone might have controlled the dai- mios, had to return to his territory on account of complications with the Eng- lish. By the spring of 1863 we find the Federals thoroughly disunited, all of the daimios who had taken office the previous year having resigned ex- cept Prince Keiki and the lord of Aidzu. Meanwhile the Imperialists were be- coming anxious over the turn of events. To them the daimios seemed to be lacking in loyalty to the Mikado. They even suspected Satsuma of trying to supplant the Tokugawas. The Federal attitude of complacency toward the foreigners was repugnant to them as showing a disregard of the imperial wishes. The disintegration of the Fed- eral party now offered an opportunity 154 THE TRANSITION for the Imperialists to take the helm of state. Jn April, 1863, they obtained imperial authority to close the ports and expel the foreigners, a measure which the Tokugawas refused to sanction and which the daimios would not take seriously. The Imperialists, however, were not daunted by this rebuff, and the lord of Choshiu showed his con- tempt of Tokugawa authority by firing at the foreign vessels which passed the shores of his territory in their passage through the Strait of Bakan. This rash act raised the opposition of the Federal party and caused its re- consolidation. Seven of the younger kuges were accused of surreptitiously obtaining the imperial sanction to this anti-foreign demonstration and were obliged to flee for their lives, while the samurai and ronins of the Choshiu clan 165 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN were forbidden the city of Kioto. They attempted to take the Federal guards of the palace gates by surprise in order to make appeal directly to the Mikado, but were repulsed with great loss. Attempted uprisings in three different parts of the country met with failure, and the whole body of Imperial- ists had to seek refuge in Choshiu. A joint army led by the lords of Owari and Echizen soon surrounded the fu- gitives and compelled the lord of Choshiu to execute three of his chief officers as an atonement for his misde- meanor, while he was obhged to retire into a monastery to await further or- ders. Owari and Echizen were not de- sirous of inflicting further punishment, and the invading armies were soon withdrawn. The lord of Aidzu was dissatisfied with this comparatively 156 THE TRANSITION light form of chastisement, and pre- vailed upon the Shogun to lead in per- son a second invasion of Choshiu. It was now that the Unionist party was formed. In their opinion, it was suicidal for the nation to be involved in internal disputes when foreign inter- ference might be expected at any time. A second invasion of Choshiu, if suc- cessful, would reinstate the Tokuga- was in power, something which neither the Federals nor the Imperialists were desirous of bringing about. The initia- tive came from the lord of Tosa, who succeeded in reconciling the leaders of the rival clans of Satsuma and Cho- shiu. A triple alliance was secretly formed by these three daimios. The Tokugawa army started from Yedo for the second invasion of Cho- shiu without the support of the Fed- 167 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN eral daimios, most of whom, with the exception of Aidzu, had already fallen under the influence of the Unionists and lent only their nominal assistance to the expedition. The golden fan of lyeyasu, hereditary insignia of the To- kugawas, which had carried all before it in the bloody battles of the sixteenth century, was at last to meet with defeat. Outgeneraled at every point, the To- kugawa army was unable to stand against the determined soldiers of Choshiu and had to beat an ignominious retreat. To add to the troubles of the Tokugawas, the Shogun died in the winter of 1866, shortly before the pass- ing away of Komei Tenno, the imperial father of our reigning Majesty. This event gave an excuse to the Tokugawas for concluding a truce, which, however, virtually yielded the victory to the 158 THE TRANSITION lord of Choshiu. The seven court nobles who had sought refuge in Choshiu were allowed to return and were reinstated in their former rank. It was about this time that Marquis Ito and other students who had been in Western countries returned from abroad and were welcomed by the Unionist leaders on account of the knowledge they had thus acquired. The party was now well equipped with ideas of constructive progress and con- stitutional government. Prince Keiki, formerly a candidate for the shogunate and later adviser of the Shogun, was himself called upon to become the last of the shoguns, but the time had long passed when he might have had an opportunity of proving his ability. True to the principles incul- cated by his father, the prince of Mito, 159 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN his supreme devotion was to the Mi- kado, and he was convinced of the fu- tility of trying longer to maintain the struggling fortunes of his own house. It needed no persuasion to induce him to give up his title and to restore entire authority to the throne. He was, in fact, unconsciously a thorough Union- ist at heart. His most trusted coun- selor, the late Count Katsu-Awa, was one of the Unionist leaders, though the rest of his vassals and daimios were, like the lord of Aidzu, Federals of the most pronounced type. It is said that when, in the fall of 1867, the envoys of the lord of Tosa came to urge his res- ignation, he bade them wait and at once drew up the memorable document in which he relinquished all the powers which had been intrusted to his family for nearly three hundred years. 160 THE TRANSITION The lord of Aidzu and some of the Tokugawa samurai objected to this sudden surrender of the shogunate and raised revolts in Osaka and the northern provinces. But, bereft of their leader, the Shogun, they were unable to make effective resistance to the Unionist army under the joint command of the great Saigo of Sat- suma and Omura of Choshiu. In the following year, after some desperate battles, they were all reduced to submis- sion. Japan once more bowed to the military authority of the Mikado. The Restoration was complete. 11 161 VIII RESTORATION AND REFORMATION T HE Restoration was at the same time a reformation. In emerging from an Asiatic hermitage to take our stand upon the broad stage of the world, we were obliged to assimilate much that the Occident offered for our advancement and at the same time to resuscitate the classic ideals of the East. The idea of the reformation is clearly expressed in the imperial declaration of 1868 in which his present Majesty, after as- cending the throne, stated that national »^ obligations should be regarded from the broad standpoint of universal humanity. As the word signifies, our restoration 162 ■f. : RESTORATION— REFORMATION was essentially a return. The govern- ment once again assumed the form of an imperial bureaucracy, such as had ex- isted before the rise of feudalism over seven hundred years ago. The first act of the new government was to reestab- lish all the ancient offices, together with their former nomenclature, while many long forgotten functions and ceremonies^ , were revived and Shintoism was pro-i^*-^^ claimed as the religion of the imperial household. Posthumous honors were conferred on loyalists who, like Masa- shige, had served the cause of the court during the former shogunates, and the descendants of many of them were ennobled. Yet these revivals of past conditions were tempered with the new spirit of freedom and equality. The Mikado, while pronouncing Shintoism to be the 163 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN religion of the household, granted lib- erty of conscience to the entire nation, and Christianity was freed from the in- terdiction under which it had lain since the Jesuit insurrection of the seven- teenth century. The class distinction between nobles, samurai, and common- ers was nominally retained, and the dai- mios and kuges were given titular rank according to the five grades of the old Chinese system. A new aristocracy even was created. All class privileges, however, were abolished, and all, from the princes and the marquises down to the abhorred yettas (who to-day bear the nickname of the " New Common- ers ") , were made equal in the eye of the law, while examinations for the civil service were thrown open to every one. The object of those who conducted the reformation was so to fuse together the 164 RESTORATION—REFORMATION hardened strata of Tokugawa social life that the entire nation might parti- cipate in the glory and responsibilities of the Restoration. There were four main lines along which the work of preparing the nation to meet the problem of mod- ern life was carried. These were, first, / constitutional government ; second, lib- 1 eral education ; third, universal military \ service; and fourth, the elevation of^ womanhood. Constitutional government has been deemed impracticable for Eastern na- tions, and in Turkey it was a sad failure. With us, however, since the assembling of our first parliament the principles and ordinances of the state have been so well carried out that we can safely affirm the experimental age to have been passed and constitutional government to have become an inherent part of our po- 165 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN litical consciousness. We may have had occasional stormy debates and divisions, a phase of affairs not miknown in the conduct of Western national assembHes ; but whenever threatened with foreign complications, aU factions have invari- ably united in support of the cabinet. The successful working of the new sys- tem is partly due, no doubt, to an inherent power of self-government ex- empHfied in the administration of many of our previous institutions, and partly to the fact that the nation had long been preparing for the responsibiUty of self- government. In 1867, as soon as the Shogun had resigned his office, the Unionist ministry created two councils, one composed of the leading daimios and kuges, the other of representative samurai from various daimiates. When his JMajesty 166 RESTORATION— REFORMATION the present Emperor ascended the throne in 1868 and proclaimed the Res- toration, he declared the establishment of a national assembly in which important affairs of state should be decided by pubHc opinion. In 1875 a senate was created, to which all contemplated legis- lation had to be submitted by the cabi- net, and this was soon followed by the establishment of the Court of Final Appeal. Thus were inaugurated the three principal factors in the conduct of a constitutional government, namely, the executive, legislative, and judicial bodies. In 1879 the senate passed a law creating in each local prefecture an as- sembly in which representatives elected by the taxpayers were to decide the annual expenditures and taxation of the province. In 1881 an imperial procla- mation announced that the Constitution 167 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN would go into effect in 1890, and ac- cordingly in February of that year it was duly promulgated. Our diet con- sists of the House of Commons and House of Peers, the latter an outgrowth of the senate established in 1875. It is significant that our Constitution was the voluntary gift of the Mikado, and not, as in the case of some European na- tions, one forced from the sovereign by the people. Consistent with Eastern traditions, our democracy is an accre- tion, not an eruption. The question of education for the people held a prominent place in the imperial declaration of 1868, the Mi- kado commanding the acquisition of knowledge from all sources throughout the world. We have already mentioned the existence in Tokugawa days of ele- mentary schools for the commoners and 168 RESTORATION— REFORMATION academies of learning for the higher classes. These were now systematically organized so that they might furnish the nation with the knowledge necessary for carrying out the obUgations of its new environment. Elementary education was made compulsory for all boys and girls above six years of age, and normal schools were established in each of the provinces to supply them with teachers. In our educational system of to-day, next above the elementary schools come the middle schools, in which a liberal edu- cation is given and pupils are prepared for entering the higher institutions of learning. There are also special schools for those desirous of entering the navy or army, agriculture, industrial science, commerce, or the arts and crafts, while the imperial university includes colleges of law, literature, medicine, engineer- 169 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN ing, and science. Female education is not neglected, though, in accordance with Eastern custom, it is given sepa- rately. A few years ago a ladies' uni- versity was started in Tokio. The study of one of the European languages is compulsory in all except the elementary schools— that of English being the one generally required. A great number of Americans and Europeans are em- ployed to give instruction, and thou- sands of young men and women study abroad either at their own or the govern- ment's expense. Our eagerness to acquire Western learning has prompted hosts of our young men to seek menial work in foreign countries, — service, ac- cording to Confucian notions, not being considered derogatory. The ethical training given to the rising generation is based on the teachings of earlier days. 170 RESTORATION— REFORMATION The imperial manifesto which formu- lated the national code of morality, after summing up the universal princi- ples of ethics, concludes with these words : " These are the teachings of our imperial ancestors, and this is the path followed by your ancestors." It is hardly necessary to add that the fruits of our newly acquired knowledge are all consecrated in intense devotion to the Mikado. Our system of military service has proved more potent than any other fac- tor in strengthening national loyalism. It has, in fact, transformed the com- moner into a samurai. Conscription had obtained in Japan long before the rise of feudalism, and its practice was merely revived in 1870 on German and French lines. According to the present . system, every male at twenty years of 171 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN age is liable to be drafted for three years' service with the colors, and after that for a service of five years each in the first and second reserves. In case of extreme emergency the whole nation may be called to armS. The officers, trained in special schools and staff* colleges, come mostly from samurai families, and their traditional code of life has permeated the entire new army. For the nation at large the social distinction of many cen- turies has thrown a halo about the sworded class, while current fiction and drama have for the last fifty years so idealized the patriotic soldier that the peasant conscript on entering the ranks feels himself ennobled not only in his own estimation but in that of his breth- ren; he is now a man of the sword, the soul of honor. He is fairly intelligent, thanks to the village school, soon mas- 172 RESTORATION— REFORMATION tering his tactics and imbibing that pro- found sense of duty which is the essence of samuraihood. At first, on account of his heretofore peaceful life, there were some misgivings about his courage; but the baptism of fire proved him able to take his place beside the best of the sam- urai. The contempt of death displayed by our conscripts is not founded, as some Western writers suppose, on the hope of a future reward. We preach no Val- halla or Moslem heaven awaiting our departed heroes; for the teachings of Buddhism promise in the next life but a miserable incarnation to the slayer of man. It is a sense of duty alone that causes our men to march to certain death at the word of command. Behind all lies devotion to the sovereign and love of country. Our conscript but follows the historic example of those heroes who 173 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN ever gave themselves as willing sacri- fices for the good of the nation. If he sometimes offers his blood too freely, it is through an exuberance of patriotic love; for love, like death, recognizes no limits. Another important feature of the reformation lay in the exaltation of womanhood. The Western attitude of • profound respect toward the gentler sex exhibits a beautiful phase of refinement which we are anxious to emulate. It is one of the noblest messages that Chris- tianity has given us. Christianity origi- nated in the East, and, except as regards womanhood, its modes of thought are not new to Eastern minds. As the new religion spread westward through Eu- rope, it naturally became influenced by the idiosyncrasies of the various con- verted nations, so that the poetry of the 174 RESTORATION— REFORMATION German forest, the adoration of the Virgin in the middle centuries, the age of chivalry, the songs of the trouba- dours, the delicacy of the Latin nature, and, above all, the clean manhood of the Anglo-Saxon race, probably all con- tributed their share toward the ideaUza- tion of woman. In Japan, woman has always com- manded a respect and freedom not to be found elsewhere in the East. We have never had a Salic law, and it is from a female divinity, the Sun-goddess, that our Mikado traces his lineage. During many of the most brilliant epochs in our ancient history we were under the rule of a female sovereign. Our Empress Zingo personally led a victorious army into Korea, and it was Empress Suiko who inaugurated the refined culture of the Nara period. Female sovereigns 175 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN ascended the throne in their own right even when there were male candidates, for we considered woman in all respects as the equal of man. In our classic lit- erature we find the names of more great authoresses than authors, while in feudal days some of our amazons charged with the bravest of the Kamakura knights. As time advanced and Confucian theo- ries became more potent in molding our social customs, woman was relegated from public life and confined to what was considered by the Chinese sage as her proper sphere, the household. Our inherent respect for the rights of wo- manhood, however, remained the same, and as late as the year 1630 a female mikado, Meisho-Tenno, ascended the throne of her fathers. Until after the Restoration, a knowledge of such mar- tial exercises as fencing and jiujitsuwas 176 RESTORATION— REFORMATION considered part of the education of a samurai's daughter, and is, indeed, still so considered among many old families. Among the commoners the various in- dustries and trades have always been open to women as they are to-day, while we have already seen how, in spite of her apparent seclusion, the Tokugawa lady impressed her individuality on the state. Buddhism has its worship for the eternal feminine and Confucianism has always inculcated a reverence for womanhood, teaching that the wife should always be treated with the respect due to a guest or friend. We have never hitherto, however, learned to oiFer any special privileges to woman. Love has never occupied an important place in Chinese literature; and in the tales of Japanese chivalry, the samurai, although ever at the service of 177 12 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN the weak and oppressed, gave his help quite irrespective of sex. To-day we are convinced that the elevation of wo- man is the elevation of the race. She is the epitome of the past and the reser- voir of the future, so that the responsi- bilities of the new social life which is dawning on the ancient realms of the Sun-goddess may be safely intrusted to her care. Since the Restoration we have not only confirmed the equality of sex in law, but have adopted that atti- tude of respect which the West pays to woman. She now possesses all the rights of her Western sister, though she does not care to insist upon them ; for al- most all of our women still consider the home, and not society, as their proper sphere. Time alone can decide the future of the Japanese lady, for the question of 178 RESTORATION— REFORMATION womanhood is one involving the whole social life and its web of convention. In the East woman has always been wor- shiped as the mother, and all those hon- ors which the Christian knight brought in homage to his lady-love, the samurai laid at his mother's feet. It is not that the wife is less adored, but that mater- nity is hoUer. Again, our woman loves to serve her husband; for service is the noblest expression of affection, and love rejoices more in giving than in receiv- ing. In the harmony of Eastern society the man consecrates himself to the state, the child to the parent, and the wife to the husband. After the successful accomplishment of the Restoration, there stiU remained for nearly thirty years one bitter drop in our cup of happiness. That was the question of treaty revision. We had es- 179 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN tablished a constitutional government and a complete educational system; we had reorganized our army and navy and joined the Geneva Convention; we had remodeled our civil law code and devel- oped extensive commercial relations with the rest of the world, yet the for- eign powers persistently refused to re- vise the obsolete treaties signed under the Tokugawa shogunate. We did not complain of the low rate of our customs- duties, though with our growing com- merce this meant a heavy loss to us, but of the jurisdiction exercised by ex- territorial courts. Japan was restored, but not entirely freed. There were spots in the Mikado's realm which his sovereignty could not reach. The West- erner, who has never known the pres- ence of a foreign consular court in his own country, cannot be expected to 180 RESTORATION— REFORMATION realize the anguish that they cause to those upon whom they are imposed. It is not that the decisions of these courts are unfair, but misunderstand- ings are always arising through the existence of race distinctions, while the fact that foreign laws should be ad- ministered at all is in itself a condem- nation of the law and justice of the country, and is necessarily a humiliation to any self-respecting nation. Since the beginning of the Restoration the efforts of our government have been constantly directed toward the abolishment of this system, but every proposal of ours was either met by the foreign powers with a peremptory refusal or elicited some ex- orbitant demand in exchange. The United States of America, it is true, agreed to a revision if all the other pow- ers would join, but this was something 181 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN which Europe was sure not to do. It was a hard task for us to convince the West that an Eastern nation could suc- cessfully assume the responsibilities of an enhghtened people. It was not until our war with China in 1894-95 had revealed our military strength as well as our capacity to maintain a high stand- ard of international morahty, that Eu- rope consented to put an end to her ex-territorial jurisdiction in Japan. It is one of the painful lessons of history that civilization, in its progress, often climbs over the bodies of the slain. Great are the struggles that we have had to undergo during these last few decades. In the turmoil of the reforma- tion the swing of the pendulum was often extreme, causing the passage of many unnecessary if not actually harm- ful measures. We have often stood be- 182 RESTORATION— REFORMATION wildered in the mid-stream of conflicting opinions, watching with dismay the shifting sand-banks of the half-reaHzed constantly changing with the currents of subconscious thought. All the ri- diculousness of paradox, all the cruelty of dilemma, were ours. We might have laughed had we not wept. Conservative reactions caused riots and local rebel- lions in which we lost many of the great- est pioneers of our reformation, and radical zealots often cut short with their swords the career of some far-sighted leader. We must be ever thankful that the helm was held throughout by hands strong enough to keep the ship of state steadily on its course, in spite of storms and contrary currents. 183 IX THE REINCARNATION PESSIMISTS declare that the Old Ja- pan is no more. They hold that in her modernization she has lost her individuality and broken the thread of her historic unity. Eminent European writers have regarded the present con- dition of affairs in Japan as transient and impermanent, a strange freak of orientalism sooner or later doomed to disintegration. They image our muta- bility in the straw sandals which we change at every stage of a journey; our disregard of all permanence in the wooden houses that are daily swept away by conflagrations. To them everything 184 THE REINCARNATION Japanese lacks solidity and stability, from the constantly vibrating land in which we dwell to the philosophy of Buddhism teaching the evanescence of all things. It is true that the imperative needs of our sudden transformation from the old to the new life have swept away many landmarks of Old Japan ; yet in spite of changes, we have still been able to re- main true to our former ideals; though our sandals be changed, our journey continues; though our houses be burnt, our cities remain ; and the earthquake but shows the virility of the mighty fish that upholds our island empire/ It should be remembered that in Eastern philosophy the poetry of things is more real and vital than mere facts ^ Japanese folk-lore teaches that earthquakes are caused by the movements of a huge fish which bears the islands of Japan upon its back. 186 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN and events. Buddhism, which taught the transitory nature of the mun- dane, never for a moment ceased to teach the immutabihty of the soul. Since the earUest dawn of history our national patriotism and devotion to the Mikado show a consistent tenacity of an- cient ideals, while the fact that we have preserved the arts and customs of an- cient China and India long after they have become lost in the lands of their birth is sufficient testimony to our rever- ence for traditions. Our conservatism is well typified by the Shinto temple of Ise, where the Sun-goddess, founder of our imperial line, is forever worshiped. That holiest shrine of our ancestrism remains to-day as perfect in its pristine beauty as it was twenty centuries ago, being rebuilt every twenty years on an alternate site in its exact original form. 186 THE REINCARNATION The world may, perhaps, laugh at our love of monotony, but can never accuse us of a lack of constancy. Our indi- viduality has been preserved from sub- mersion beneath the mighty tide of Western ideas by the same national characteristics which ever enabled us to remain true to ourselves in spite of re- peated influxes of foreign thought. From time immemorial the civilizations of China and India have silted over Korea and the adjacent coasts of Japan. The Tang dynasty flooded us with its pantheism and harmonism, while under the Sung dynasty new elements of ro- manticism and individualism were car- ried to our shores. From the dualistic theories of the Hinayana* to the ultra- monistic doctrines of Bodhidharma,^ In- ^ Southern school of Buddhism, or Lesser Vehicle. 2 An Indian monk who came to China in the sixth cen- tury and started the early form of Zen. 187 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN dia has dowered us with a wealth of religion and philosophy. Different and conflicting as were these various schools of thought, Japan has welcomed them all and assimilated whatever ministered to her mental needs, incorporating the gift as an integral part of her thought- inheritance. The hearth of our ancient ideals was ever guarded by a careful eclecticism, while the broad fields of our national life, enriched by the fer- tile deposits of each successive inun- dation, burst forth into fresher verdure. The expenditure of thought involved synthesizing the different elements f Asiatic culture has given to Japa- nese philosophy and art a freedom and virility unknown to India and China. It is thus due to past training that we are able to comprehend and appre- ciate more easily than our neighbors 188 THE REINCARNATION those elements of Western civilization which it is desirable that we should ac- quire. Accustomed to accept the new without sacrificing the old, our adoption of Western methods has not so greatly affected the national life as is generally supposed. The same eclecticism which ''^^»^ had chosen Buddha as the spiritual and Confucius as the moral guide, hailed ^-^X modern science as the beacon of material progress. Our efforts to master certain phases of Western development have re- sulted in an increase of industrial activ- ity and the introduction of scientific sanitation and surgery, while our meth- ods of communication and transporta- tion have been greatly improved and the ordinary comforts of life are much more universally enjoyed than ever before. Development along such lines, however, has but little effect on our national char- 189 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN acter beyond acting as a stimulus for further efforts. Again, the adoption of Western po- litical and social customs has not neces- sitated so great a change on our part as might at first seem apparent. Our past experience taught us to choose in West- ern institutions only what was consistent with our Eastern nature. It must be remembered that in spite of the seeming demarcation of the East and the West, all human development is fundamen- tally the same, and that in the vast range of Asiatic history there can be found al- most every variety of social usage. We have already alluded to that ancient Confucian state which suggested de- mocracy to the Unionists. The five grades of nobihty from duke to baron were known in the Chow dynasty three thousand years ago. Slavery was abol- 190 THE REINCARNATION ished by the Hang dynasty during the ^^''^'^ first century of the Christian era. So-s cialistic theories concerning the equal distribution of property and govern- ment management of agricultural prod- ucts, were carried into actual practice during the Hang and Sung dynasties. Modern German idealism was antici- pated in India many ages ago, while Christianity has many parallelisms inj Buddhism. The modern European ten- dency toward the demarcation of the church from the state, as well as the civil- service examination system, has existed in China since early days. It was on ac- count of these and many other points of resemblance between Western and Asi- atic civilizations that Japan was able to borrow much from Europe and America without violating her sense of tradition. One who looks beneath the surface of 191 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN things can see, in spite of her modern garb, that the heart of Old Japan is still beating strongly. Our Civil Code, which embodies the spirit of Western law, incorporates to a great extent the customs and usages of our past. Our Constitution, though it may seem simi- lar to many Western constitutions, is foimded on our ancient system of gov- ernment, and even finds its prototype in the days of the gods. The Japanese Re- naissance, which began in the eighteenth century, has never stayed its course. Armed with more systematic methods, our scholars still pursue their research into ancient art and literature. The Historical Bureau of Tokio University has already collected an immense quan- tity of material for the reconstruction of our annals. The Imperial Archseologi- cal Commission has, in the last fif- 192 THE REINCARNATION teen years, ransacked the monasteries throughout the whole extent of the em- pire, and confuted many of the tradi- tions of the Tokugawa critics. Rare Chinese books are eagerly sought after, an extremely valuable collection being recently acquired from the imperial ar- chives of Peking. An interest in San- skrit literature has also arisen, and the Max Miiller library has been recently purchased and brought to Tokio, while Buddhism and Confucianism are studied with even greater zest than they were at the outset of the Restoration. Old cus- toms and ceremonies are being revived, and a knowledge of our ancient etiquette forms as much a part of a gentleman's training as ever it did, the tendency of democracy being only to make it more universal than before. The tea-cere- mony and flower-arrangement have ^ 193 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN again become common features in the life of our ladies. Classic music and drama are widely studied even by people of European education. It may not, perhaps, be generally known that the ancient ceremonial functions of the court are kept up to-day without any alteration in form. As a notable in- stance of this, we may call attention to the fact that the declaration of war with Russia was announced to the Sun-god- dess by a distinguished envoy from the Mikado, and a special guard was de- tailed for service at the shrine in Ise during the continuance of hostilities. As Hakuraku discerned the real horse, so may he who perceives the real spirit of things see in current events the reincarnation of Old Japan. In the thoroughness and minutiae of our prepa- rations for war, he wiU recognize the 194 THE REINCARNATION same hands whose untiring patience gave its exquisite finish to our lacquer. In the tender care bestowed upon our stricken adversary of the battle-field will be found the ancient courtesy of the samurai, who knew "the sadness of things" and looked to his enemy's wound before his own. The ardor that leads our sailors into daring enterprises is inspired by the Neo-Confucian doc- 5 trine which teaches that to know is to ; do. The calmness with which our peo- * pie have met the exigencies of a national crisis is a heritage from those disciples of Buddha who in the silence of the mon- astery meditated on change. All that is vital and representative in our contemporary art and literature is the revivified expression of the national school, not imitation of European mod- els. The brilliant creations of our lead- 195 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN ing novelists, Koda-Rohan and the late Ozaki-Koyo, are based on a revival of the style of the seventeenth century. The name of the lamented Danjuro, one of the greatest actors that the world has ever seen, is inseparably connected vi^ith our historical drama. The well-known ceramists, Takemoto-Hayata, Makuzu- Kozan, and Seifu-Yohei, may be consid- ered as wonderful as the old Chinese masters whose secrets they have discov- ered. Natsuo, Zesshin, Hogai, and Gaho illustriously prove that the spirit of our ancient art still lives. We do not mean to say that the study of European art and literature is in any way injurious or even undesirable, but that so far its results can in no way compare with the achievements of the native school. It is a matter of no small wonder that our national art should have survived 196 THE REINCARNATION amid the adverse surroundings in which it found itself. The phiHstine nature of/ industrialism and the restlessness of ma- 1 terial progress are inimical to Eastern^ art. The machinery of competition im- poses the monotony of fashion instead of the variety of life. The cheap is wor- shiped in place of the beautiful, while the rush and struggle of modern exis- tence give no opportunity for the leisure required for the crystallization of ideals. Patronage is no longer even the sign of individual bad taste. Music is criticized through the eye, a picture through the ear. The possibihty that Japanese art may become a thing of the past is a matter of sympathetic concern to the esthetic com- munity of the West. It should be known that our art is suffering not merely from the purely utilitarian trend 197 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN of modern life, but also from an inroad of Western ideas. The demand of the Western market for dubious art goods, together with the constant criticism of our standard of taste, has told upon our individuahty. Our difficulty lies in the fact that Japanese art stands alone in the world, without immediate possibility of any accession or reinforcement from kindred ideals or technique. We no lon- ger have the benefit of a living art in China to excite our rivalry and urge us on to fresh endeavors. On the other hand, the unfortunately contemptuous attitude which the average Westerner assumes toward everything connected with Oriental civilization tends to de- stroy our self-confidence in regard to our canons of art. Those European and American connoisseurs who appreciate our efforts may not realize that the 198 THE REINCARNATION West, as a whole, is constantly preach- ing the superiority of its own culture and art to those of the East. Japan stands alone against all the world. It is but natural that the weak-spirited among us follow the trend of world- opinion and desert the ranks of con- servative upholders of our national school. The delight of some of our gilded youths in the latest cut of a Lon- don tailor or the last novelty from Paris is one of the pathetic indications of an attempted protective coloring against the universal condemnation of Eastern customs. Japanese art has done wonders in re- maining true to itself in spite of the odds it has had to face. We trust and hope that the tenacious vitality which it has evinced, in spite of the overwhelming occidentalism of the last four decades, 199 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN will keep Japanese art intact in the fu- ture. Every accession to our national self-confidence is a strong incentive to the preservation of national ideals. A great reaction toward native customs and art has been manifested since our victory over China ten years ago. We hope that our success over a stronger ad- versary than China will give us a still deeper self-confidence. We shall be ready more than ever to learn and as- similate what the West has to offer, but we must remember that our claim to re- spect lies in remaining faithful to our own ideals. 200 X JAPAN AND PEACE WE have been repeatedly accused of belligerent designs and expan- sive ambitions. Perhaps to European nations, with their traditions of con- quest and colonization, it may be incon- ceivable that we are not animated by the same spirit of aggrandizement that has often led them into war. But to any one who cares to study the history of our foreign policy nothing can be clearer than the constancy of our de- sire for the maintenance of peace, our final recourse to war being forced upon us by the necessity of safeguarding our national existence. The very na- 201 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN ture of our civilization, in fact, pro- hibits aggression against foreign na- tions. Confucianism, which is an epit- ^^'^^'lome of the agricultural civilization of China, is essentially self-contained and non-aggressive in its nature. The fer- tility of the vast plains wherein the teachings of Confucius were followed rendered any overstepping of their ^natural boundaries unnecessary. The message of the sage made love of the soil and consecration of labor, go hand in hand. He and his followers taught ( the homely and the patriarchal virtues ) of meekness and harmony. Later came Buddhism to reinforce the root-idea of contentment and self-restraint. Not ' once during the whole of their hoary history do we find the native dynasties 1 of China and India ever coming into \ collision with each other. The only oc- 202 JAPAN AND PEACE casion on which China ever menaced Ja- pan was when in the twelfth century her own Mongol conquerors tried to impose their authority upon us. Japan, though originally a maritime )|y^J^ nation, had through the influence of! Confucianism and Buddhism long ago become, like her neighbors, self-con- tained, seeking the fulfilment of her des- tinies within the narrow limits of her island empire. The fact that in the J eighth century we had given up our an- cient dominion over Korea, proves how \ deeply the continental idea had become a ' part of our national consciousness. The Korean peninsula had probably origi- nally been colonized by us during pre- historic ages. Archaeological remains in Korea are of exactly the same type as those found in our primitive dolmens. The Korean language remains, even to- 203 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN day, the nearest allied to ours of all the Asiatic tongues. Our earliest traditions tell of the god Sosano, brother of our imperial ancestress, settling in Korea; and Dankun, first king of that country, is considered by some historians to have been his son. The third century dis- closes our Empress Zhingo leading an invasion of the peninsula in order to re- establish our sovereignty, threatened by the rise of a number of small indepen- ^ /dent kingdoms. Our annals are filled '-^ until the eighth century with accounts of \our protection over colonies. From this time onward, however, a great change comes over Japan, and all our energy is expended in religious fervor. This age, which witnessed the erection of in- numerable monasteries and the casting of the colossal Buddha of Nara, saw the last of our Korean colonies allowed to 204 JAPAN AND PEACE perish, her appeals for help unheeded by the mother-country. The attempted Mongol invasion of the thirteenth century kindled in us a feeling of animosity toward the Koreans who led the Chinese vanguard. Our only act of retaliation, however, con- sisted in the unique expedition of the Taiko Hideyoshi, who, in the sixteenth century, led an army into Korea to mea- sure swords with those whom he consid- ered as his hereditary enemies. But national sentiment had long lost sympa- thy with any idea of foreign conquest, and the Taiko's army was presently re- called at his death. The only result of this extraordinary expedition was the sending, during subsequent Tokugawaf / — days, of envoys from the Korean sover-j -4 eign to pay the homage of a tributarv ^ king to each newly appointed shogun — ) 205 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN a homage equally offered to the Chinese emperors. This ceremony continued till the days of the Restoration, but we never thought of availing ourselves of the right imphed by it to interfere in continental politics. On the contrary, we prided ourselves upon our complete isolation from the rest of the world, and did not even seek to renew those diplo- matic amenities with China which had ceased after the Taiko's expedition. The Tokugawa policy of non-inter- ference in continental affairs is well ex- emphfied in the refusal of aid to the celebrated Koxinga, a patriotic general of the Ming dynasty, who drove the Dutch out of Formosa and for three generations held it against the Manchu conquerors of China. The governors of all other provinces surrendered, and he alone upheld the remnant of Ming au- 206 JAPAN AND PEACE thority. Half a Japanese himself, being the son of a Ming refugee by a Nagasaki woman, he pleaded his birth as a reason for asking for an alliance and reinforcements from the Japanese. Several young daimios, together with quite a number of samurai, fired by his appeal, wished to volunteer, but the To- kugawa authorities absolutely refused to allow them to do so. Our relations with China and Korea since the Restoration of 1868 are strik- ingly illustrative of our traditional pol- icy of peace and non-aggression. When we emerged from our sleep of three cen- turies international conditions were changed indeed! Events were taking place in Asia which threatened our very existence. No Eastern nation could hope to maintain its independence un- less it was able to defend itself from out- 207 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN side attack. Natural barriers were as naught before the advance of science. The Yellow Sea and the Korean straits, which we formerly considered as invin- cible obstacles to aggression from the continent, amounted to little since the introduction of fast war-ships and long- range ordnance. Any hostile power in occupation of the peninsula might easily throw an army into Japan, for Korea lies hke a dagger ever pointed toward the very heart of Japan. Moreover, the independence of Korea and Manchuria is economically necessary to the preser- vation of our race, for starvation awaits our ever-increasing population if it be deprived of its legitimate outlet in the sparsely cultivated areas of these coun- tries. To-day the Muscovites have laid their hands on these territories, with none but us to offer any resistance. Under 208 JAPAN AND PEACE these circumstances, we are compelled to regard our ancient domain of Korea as lying within our hnes of legitimate na- tional defense. It was when the inde- pendence of the peninsula was threat- ened by China in 1894 that we were compelled to go to war with the latter country. It was for this same indepen- dence that we fought Russia in 1904. There were several occasions when we might have taken possession of Korea, but we forbore, in the face of strong provocation, because our wishes were f oij peace. We must remember that the his- toric spirit that created the Restoration also recalled the fact that Korea was originally a Japanese province, and in the Tokugawa days paid tribute to the shogunate. A casus belli was not want- ing in the early seventies of the last century, for Korea labored under " 209 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN strange delusions, and not only refused to recognize the government of the Restoration, but heaped insults upon us. Much less cause of provocation than ours has often been taken as a ground for aggression by European nations. The divisions in the cabinet of 1873 and the rebellion caused by the secession- ists of Satsuma in 1879 were the result of disputes between the war and peace parties, in which the latter always came out victorious. At that time the West had not the keen interest in the East that she has since acquired, and would not have interfered with our actions. The members of the war party urged that the unique moment had arrived when Japan might assume control of Korea and lay at rest forever the danger of her falling into the hands of some other power. To them Korea had al- 210 JAPAN AND PEACE ways been a tributary nation, and we would be but confirming already exist- ing rights. Perhaps if the Korean ques- tion had been then settled, all the blood- shed of the Chinese and Russian wars might have been avoided. The Mikado's chief advisers, together with a majority of those who had a voice in the government, were strongly op- posed to the views of the war party. In their eyes the Restoration had a higher significance than could be found in aggrandizement at the expense of neigh- boring countries. To them it repre- sented the principles of justice and hu- manity, liberalism, and the elevation of the Japanese race. Its very key-notes should be nobleness and self-sacrifice, the virtues of the samurai enlarged into those of the nation. The lives of those statesmen who, like Okubo-Toshimichi, ^11 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN Kido-Koyin, and Prince Iwakura, held to these lofty ideals gave its moral tone to the present Japanese government and are eloquent of unselfishness and purity. Their simplicity and determination are characteristic of those enlightened spir- its who appear to guide the people dur- ing the critical moments of every na- tional regeneration. The advocates of peace prevailed, and the war party resigned from the gov- ernment and rose in rebellion, so that those who remained in power were often obHged to inlBlict the penalty of death upon their erstwhile dearest friends. The Mikado, always for peace, not only forbade any expedition against Korea, but cultivated her friendship. In 1876 a treaty of amity was signed, in which we recognized the full sovereignty of the Hermit Kingdom and for the first time 212 JAPAN AND PEACE opened for her commercial relations with the rest of the world. Thus began our open-door policy in the far East. Our object in renouncing our rights over a tributary kingdom was to force China to do likewise and thus create a neutral zone between the two nations. If China and Russia had respected the indepen- dence of Korea, no wars would have taken place. The war with China in 1894-95 was brought about by the ambition of China to make herself the practical owner of Korea, which she claimed as a tributary state. To the ancient pride of China the treaty of 1876 by which we recognized the independence of Korea was a heavy blow. She deeply resented the action of Japan in placing that kingdom beyond the pale of her dominion. Her con- servative instincts revolted against our 15 213 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN modernization, and she sought to humi- liate that upstart nation which was so insignificant compared with her in point of size. The situation resembled that between Austria and Prussia in the last century, before the Seven Weeks' War, and was practically the outcome of a family quarrel which had to be settled once for all. The parallelism may be still further followed in the internal division of Austria and Hungary and that of Manchuria and China proper, for it should be remembered that the bel- ligerent party was centered around the Manchurian court at Peking and the viceroys of Northern China, whereas the southerners were but lukewarm, even dehghting in the Japanese successes. In this may be found one of the causes for the easy defeat of China at our hands. 214 JAPAN AND PEACE The long-sought opportunity for seiz- ing the control of Korea was offered to China in the discord of the Korean gov- ernment. Here again the antagonism of the cabinet and the household, so fatal to Eastern autocracy, was the real cause of all trouble. To the enlightened statesmen of Seoul the opening of the country and the proposed development of her resources were matters of great satisfaction. The ladies of the house- hold, however, feared the loss of their privileges in the liberal form of govern- ment which the cabinet was eager to es- tablish. The household appealed to China for support, while the progressive cabinet sought the aid of Japan. A diplomatic duel ensued, which, as usual, resulted in the victory of the ladies. Practical control over the Korean gov- ernment was obtained by China in the S15 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN year 1894, and she decided to install her- self permanently in the peninsula by sending thither, in spite of our protests, a large body of troops. The history of the war is well known. Ping-yang was another Sadowa, and our army con- quered the whole of southern Manchu- ria, including Port Arthur. In 1895 a peace was signed, by the terms of which China fully recognized the indepen- dence of Korea and ceded to us Formosa, together with the territories which we occupied at the end of the war. By this treaty we had attained the ob- ject of our campaign, which was the protection of the territorial integrity of Korea as a safeguard against any fur- ther danger from China. With virtual command of the Yellow Sea our anxiety was set at rest. It was then that the triple coalition 216 JAPAN AND PEACE interfered with the just fruits of our victory. In the name of peace, Russia, upheld by Germany and France, forci- bly demanded that we give up our newly acquired possessions in Manchuria. This unexpected blow was a severe one, con- sidering the great sacrifices we had made in the war. We were, however, in no position to refuse the combined de- mands of the three powers, and had only to submit; moreover, as their interven- tion came in the sacred name of peace, the nation had to be content. The fact that the Muscovite empire soon after coolly took possession of Port Arthur, which she had asked us to evacuate, seemed a queer proceeding; but we of- fered no opposition to her action, for, as novices in European diplomacy, we still believed in international morality and relied on the fair words of the Russians S17 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN when they declared that their intention was to hold that place merely in the in- terests of universal commerce. Nine years elapsed, during which their real designs became revealed. The greatest shock came to us, however, when we found that they were determined not only to possess Manchuria, but also to annex Korea. Protest after protest was made on our part. Promise after prom- ise was given by Russia, never to be ful- filled. Meanwhile, she was pouring huge armies into Manchuria, and her ad- vance-guard entered Korea itself. The throat of the dragon was touched, and we arose. Among the crags of Liao- tung and the billows of the Yellow Sea we closed in deadly conflict. We fought not only for our motherland, but for the ideals of the recent reformation, for the noble heritage of classic culture, 218 JAPAN AND PEACE and for those dreams of peace and har- mony in which we saw a glorious rebirth for all Asia. Who speaks of the Yellow Peril? The idea that China might, with the aid of Japan, hurl her hosts against Europe would be too absurd even to notice were it not for those things from which atten- tion is drawn by the utterance. It may not, perhaps, be generally known that the expression " Yellow Peril " was first coined in Germany when she was pre- paring to annex the coast of Shantung. Naturally, therefore, we become suspi- cious when Russia takes up the cry at the very moment when she is tightening the grasp of her mailed hand on Man- churia and Korea. The Great Wall of China, the only edifice on earth of sufficient length to be seen from the moon, stands as a monu- 219 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN mental protest against the possibility of such a peril. This ancient rampart, stretching from Shan-hai-kuan to the Tonkan Pass, was erected not only as a barrier against foreign encroachment, but also as the self -defined territorial limit of Celestial ambition. During the twenty-one centuries of its existence but occasional sorties were made through its gates, and those only with the object of chastising predatory tribes. It is a fact peculiarly worthy of note that the legendary lore of the Chinese contains no tale of over-sea or crusade-like enter- prises, no account of Macedonian con- quests or Roman triumphs. The epics of the Trojan war or the Viking sagas find no echo in the literature of the Flow- ery Kingdom. This cry of a YeUow Peril must, indeed, sound ironical to the Chinese, who, through their traditional 220 JAPAN AND TEACE policy of non-resistance, are even now suffering in the throes of the White Disaster. Again, the whole history of Japan's long and voluntary isolation from the rest of the world makes such a cry ri- diculous. However changed modern conditions may be, there is no reason for supposing that either Japan or China might suddenly develop a nomadic in- stinct and set forth on a career of over- whelming devastation. If the wont of history is to repeat itself, if a real peril is again to threaten the world, it will be one born in the his- toric cradle of the steppes, not in the rich valleys of the Hwang-ho and the Yang- tse-kiang, nor on the terraced hillsides of the Japanese archipelago. It was from within the limits of imperial Russia that in ancient times the Goths, the Vandals, 221 THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN the Huns, and the Mongols descended, with their nomadic hosts, over Europe and southern Asia. It is among the tall grasses that wave to the wind from the banks of the Amur to the foot of the Ural Mountains that the Siberian Cos- sacks and Tartars, grim descendants of Jenghiz and Tamerlane, still roam un- tamed. In the atrocities committed in Peking and Manchuria, and in the re- cent horrors of Kishinef, the world may see what is to be expected from the Muscovite soldiery when once their sav- age nature has broken loose. Russia herself is responsible for the possibility of that peril which she now attributes to the peaceful nations of the far East. When will wars cease? In the West international morahty remains far be- low the standard to which individual morality has attained. Aggressive na- 222 JAPAN AND PEACE tions have no conscience, and all chivalry is forgotten in the persecution of weaker races. He who has not the courage and the strength to defend himself is bound to be enslaved. It is sad for us to con- template that our truest friend is still the sword. What mean these strange combinations which Europe displays, — the hospital and the torpedo, the Chris- tian missionary and imperialism, the maintenance of vast armaments as a guarantee of peace? Such contradic- tions did not exist in the ancient civiliza- tion of the East. Such were not the ideals of the Japanese Restoration, such is not the goal of her reformation. The night of the Orient, which had hidden us in its folds, has been lifted, but we find the world still in the dusk of humanity. Europe has taught us war; when shall she learn the blessings of peace? 223 ; CHRONOLOGY India China Japan B.C. 823 Buddha B.C. 604 Lao-tsze 551 Confu- cius B.C. 660 First Em- pwror of Japan 24SAsoka 221 Tsin Dynasty 202 Hang Dynasty A.D. 50 Kaniska A.D. 67 Introduc- tion of Buddhism 220 The Three Kingdoms 268 The Six Dynasties A.D. 285 Introduc- tion of Confu- cianism 550 Vikrama^ ditya 552 Introduc- tion of Bud- dhism 618 Tang Dynasty 700 The Kara Period 800 Sanchara- charya 800 The Heian Period 907 The Five Dynasties 960 Sung Dynasty 900 The Fuji- wara Period 1024 Mahmud ofGhazni 1100 Rise of the Mongols 1150 Decline of Imperial Rule 1219 Beginning of Mongol Invasion 1200 Jenghiz Khan 1192 Kamaku- ra Sho- gunate 1260 Yuen, or the Mongol, Dynasty 1281 Mongol Invasion 224 CHRONOLOGY India China A.D, A.D. 1898 Tamerlane A.D.1368 Ming Dynasty 1526 The Mogul Empire 1664 Sivaji, King of the Mahrattas 1757 Battle of Plassey 1803 The last of the Great Moguls 1664 Manchu Dynasty 1800 Russians on the Amur 1858 British Sov- ereignty over India 1842 Opium War; British in Hongkong 1860 Sack of the Summer Palace 1874 French Pro- tectorate over Annam 1806 Russia in Port Ar- thur, Ger- many in Kiao-chau Japan 1S34 Temporary Restora- tion of Imr>erial Rule 1338 Ashikaga Shogunate 1583 Taiko Hi- deyoshi 1600 Tokuga- wa Sho- gunate 1806 Russian En- croach- ment on Yesso 1853 The Arrival of Com- modore Perry 1860 Death of Lord of Hikone 1861 Assembly of Daimios at Kioto 1867 Resignation of Keiki, the last Shogun 1868 Restoration of the Im- perial Rule 1894 War with China 1904 War with Russia Univereity of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. ^}vV\ V^ l^^ UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY ^M) A 000 670 554 5 y — ^ UNIVERSITY LIBRARY ty of Califomia, San Diego DATE DUE